INDIA 
INKLINGS 


MARGARET     T. 
APPLECART  H 


,,mmk 


■ 


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INDIA  INKLINGS 


MARGARET  T.  APPLEGARTH 


Little  drops  of  ink,  little  lines  of  pen, 

Make  the  India  Inklings  tell  us  why  and  when. 


UNIV.  OF  CAUF.  LIBRARY,  LOS 


ANGELES 


Ink  is  the  friendliest  little  soul  that  ever  was — and  quite  the 
Greatest  Introducer  in  the  world:  "Come  now,  let  me  make 
you  two  acquainted  1"  is  the  tune  he  daily  sings,  as  he  writes 
dictionaries  to  make  strange  words  familiar,  arithmetics  to  make 
slippery  sums  give  proper  answers,  and  geographies  to  make 
vast  continents  nod  pleasantly  to  one  another.  As  for  story- 
books, perhaps  you  will  be  glad  to  meet  even  a  blot  when  the 
India  Ink  uncorks  his  inklings  for  youl 


INDIA   INKLINGS 

THE  STORY  OF  A  BLOT 


BY 
MARGARET  T.  APPLEGARTH 

Author  of  "Lamplighters  Across  the  Sea,"  "Missionary 
Stories  for  Little  Folks,"  etc. 


WITH    INKLINGS    DRAWN 
BY  THE  AUTHOR 


NEW  X5Jr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1922, 
BY  GEORGE  H.   DORAN   COMPANY 


INDIA  INKLINGS.     II 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


HERE  ARE  ALL  THE  STORY  CHAPTERS 

They  call  this  page  a  "Table  of  Contents"  in 
grown-up  books,  as  if  you  were  invited  to  sit  down 
and  order  a  meal  from  a  menu  card;  but  it  never 
would  do  to  eat  an  Inkling  (ask  grandfather  in 
Chapter  XIII).  So  I  really  like  our  way  the  best, 
don't  you? 

I  Only  a  Blot,     15 

II  The  Story  That  Ends  Twice,     22 

III  When  Manikam  Minded  His  Mother,     31 

IV  My  Bonnie  Lies  Over  the  Ocean,     40 

V  One  to  Begin,  Two  to  Make  Ready,  and  Three 

to  Go!     51 

VI  Guess  Again,     63 

VII  Church-Bell  Billy  Turns  Into  a  Book-Seller,   73 

VIII  Mr.  Pied  Piper,  M.D.,    81 

IX  Hide  and  Go  Seek,     92 

X  The  Trouble-Called-Christmas,     101 

XI  When  Christmas  Came  to  Town,     113 

XII  The  Worm  That  Preached  a  Sermon,     124 

XIII  How  Grandfather  Ate  His  Relatives,     133 

XIV  Cut!  Cut!  Cut!  Ca-da-cut!     142 

XV     Manikam  Shakes  the  Tulsi  Tree,     151 
XVI     Worth  Her  Weight  in  Gold,     161 

vii 


2125490 


-V.ML 


AND  THESE  ARE  THE  INKLINGS  THAT  YOU 
WILL  SEE 

Ink  is  the  Friendliest  Little  Soul  That  Ever  Was — i 

Frontispiece 
Only  a  Blot,     17 

Blot  Plunges  into  Deep  Trouble,     23 
You  Can  Hardly  Blame  Manikam,     33 
A  Quaint  Old  Full-Sailed  Vessel,    41 
Elephant  Tail  and  Other  Tales,     53 
Bonnie  Aunt  Unpacks  Her  Household  Goods,     65 
You  Wonder  When  Billy  Slept,     75 

Village   Detectives   Hot   on  the   Trail   of    Mr.   Pied 

Piper,  M.D.,     83 
"You  Stay  So  Short  and  You  Go  So  Long,"    93 
This  Inkling,  Alas!  Has  a  Blinkling,      103 
The  Stars  Looked  Down,     115 
How  Dearly  the  New  Christians  Prized  God's  House, 

125 
New  Inklings  About  Little  Drops  of  Water,     135 

Machamma's  Hen,     143 

Tin  Lizzie  Shakes  Tulsi  Tree,     153 

Angel  Weighs  Her  as  She  Sleeps,     163 

ix 


Little  drops  of  ink,  little  lines  of  pen, 

Make  the  India  Inklings  tell  us  why  and  when. 

AND  THESE  ARE  THE  PEOPLE  YOU  WILL 
READ  ABOUT 

DEVIDAS,  the  villain  of  this  tale,  I  fear;  although  he 
did  the  best  he  knew,  and  eventually  lived  out  the 
meaning  of  his  Indian  name,  "Servant  of  God." 
Meanwhile  imagine  naming  his  daughter — 

MACHAMMA  (our  heroine)  who  began  by  being  onfy 

a  Blot,  who  ended  by  being  Joy. 
PITCHAMMA,  her  dear  puzzled  mother,  with  another 

all  wrong  name,  meaning  "Crazy  One." 

MANIKAM,  her  cousin,  that  great  discoverer  of  scales 
and  clocks  and  drops  of  water  who  brought  home 
many  inklings  of  a  new  life  to 

GRANDFATHER  1 
GRANNY 

UNCLES 

AUNTS 

MRS.  DRAKE,  only  she  will  really  never  be  called  this 
probably,  since  to  Tim  and  to  Tom  and  to  us  she 
is  "Bonnie  Aunt,"  to  the  Blot  she  is  "Amma  "  to 
the  morning  glories  their  "Bit-of-Whiteness," 
while  to  every  one  else  in  the  Town  of  the  Twisted 
Tulsi  Tree  she  is  "Mem  Sahib." 

DR.  DRAKE,  known  in  India  as  the  "Doctor  Sahib," 
but  to  Tim  and  Tom  as  "Uncle  Harry,"  alias  "Mr. 
Pied  Piper,  M.D." 

xi 


■  the  rest  of  their  family. 


xii      People  You  Will  Read  About 

KRYPAMMA  ("Grace"). 
LAKSHMAMMA  ("The  Fortunate  One"). 
DUKHI  ("One  in  Pain"). 
MANOR  AM  A  ("Heart's  Joy"). 
RICHER-THAN-RUBIES,  the  little  brown  saint,  who 

was  their  Bible  woman. 
SATHIAVADAM,  that  brown  man  of  wisdom,  teacher 

of  boys. 


Three    wise    men 
^who  brought  pre- 
cious gifts  to  the 
Saviour. 


NURSAI  (with  a  crick  in  his  back  ' 
from  gathering  fagots) 

PURUSHOTHAM  (the  carpenter) 

CHUNDER  SINGH  (the  farmer) 

TIM  and  TOM,  the  Twinnies,  who  walk  in  and  out  of 
these  pages  trailing  clouds  of  glory,  and  mailing 
a  dozen  nice  things  to  India  which  you  really  might 
mail  yourself,  now  that  you've  had  an  inkling  or 
two  of  what's  needed. 

As  for  the  queer  little  pictures,  they  are  only  put  in 
this  book  to  show  Tim  and  Tom  {and  you,  of 
course)  the  kind  of  Inklings  almost  any  pen  will 
draw  when  dipped  in 


INDIA  INKLINGS 


INDIA  INKLINGS 


ONLY   A   BLOT 

'VTOBODY  dared  tell  the  baby's  father !  The  grand- 
■^■^  mother  said  that  as  for  her  she  simply  couldn't 
and  wouldn't. 

"Then  you  do  it!"  said  the  Old  Aunt. 

"No,  no!  You're  oldest,  you  tell  him,"  urged  the 
Youngest  Aunt. 

Whereupon  all  the  in-between  aunts  and  cousins  and 
neighbors  wagged  their  heads  sympathetically.  Here 
was  a  fix,  indeed :  who  would  tell  the  father  that  he 
was  a  father?  For  plainly,  nobody  wanted  to!  So 
the  little  new  baby  obligingly  settled  the  dreadful  ques- 
tion by  lifting  up  its  brand-new  voice  and  wailing  as 
loud  as  it  could,  which  was  surprisingly  louder  than 
any  one  dreamed  it  would  be,  considering  how  inex- 
perienced the  baby  was  at  howling.  In  fact,  it  was 
such  an  altogether  satisfactory  howl  that  it  reached 
the  ears  of  Devidas,  the  father,  as  he  came  sauntering 
down  the  street  under  the  cocoanut  palm-trees,  and 
he  hurried  indoors  with  his  face  beaming. 

"Ah!"  he  called.     "Did  I  not  hear  the  voice  of  a 

little  son  calling  me?" 

15 


16  India  Inklings 

"Salaam,  oh,  lord  and  master,"  quailed  the  Old 
Aunt,  wringing  her  poor  brown  hands,  "we  have  bad 
news  to  break  to  you ;  for  your  son  is  a  daughter,  alas ! 
alas !" 

He  could  hardly  believe  his  ears.  "A  d-daughter?" 
he  stammered.  "But  how  could  the  gods  send  me  a 
daughter,  woman?  Surely  not  after  I  have  spent  all 
those  many  rupees  on  that  rich  feast  for  the  temple 
priests — and  after  all  those  other  rupees  I  gave  to  repair 
the  idol  car — and  those  sumptuous  offerings  of  food 
at  the  shrines — " 

"Alas!  Alas!"  groaned  the  aunts  and  cousins  and 
neighbors  in  a  dismal  chorus,  wagging  their  heads  in 
utter  discouragement. 

One  glance  at  their  sorry  looks  convinced  him  that 
the  longed-for  son  was  indeed  a  daughter,  so  he  scowled 
at  them  each  and  all.  "Leave  me  alone!"  he  ordered 
in  his  sternest  voice;  they  meekly  backed  out  of  the 
room.  But  the  baby,  who  did  not  yet  understand  this 
business  of  being  so  meek  and  disappearing  in  silence, 
wailed  a  still  louder  wail  than  before — as  if  to  say: 
"There,  father!  Better  than  the  last  one,  wasn't  it?' 
I  should  think  you'd  be  pretty  proud  of  a  child  who 
can  howl  like  this  when  only  two  hours  old!" 

But  Devidas  was  not  proud  at  all;  he  was  too  much 
upset.  Presently  he  went  out  and  told  all  his  relatives 
how  upset  he  was — a  girl,  bah!  Didn't  his  youngest 
brother  have  a  son  already,  the  bright  little  Manikam  ? 
Well,  he  wanted  a  son,  too.  Daughters  were  worse 
than  nothing.  Yes,  the  relatives  wagged  their  heads; 
daughters  hardly  counted. 


Only  a  Blot 


17 


In  case  you  have  no  Inkling  as  yet  about  this  business  of 
being  "only  a  blot,"  you  will  soon  find  out  how  conspicuously 
inconvenient  it  was  for  Devidas — and  Machamma,  too ! 


Only  a  Blot  19 

Then  he  went  to  the  temple  to  tell  the  priests,  and 
they  agreed  that  it  was  really  too  bad,  but  if  he  had 
only  bought  ghee  to  pour  over  the  idols.  .  .  . 

"Ghee  ?"  groaned  the  almost  bankrupt  father.  "Why 
I  did  buy  melted  butter,  sirs,  don't  you  remember?" 

Oh,  so  he  had.  Well,  it  was  too  bad.  But  the  gods 
were  probably  displeased  with  him,  otherwise  it  should 
certainly  have  been  a  son,  after  all  the  trouble  he  had 
taken. 

All  this  time  the  baby  was  still  practicing  wails — 
up  and  up  the  scale  she  soared,  oh!  if  she  had  only 
been  a  quiet  baby!  But  in  that  case  this  book  might 
never  have  been  written,  for  it  is  a  fact  that  when  she 
was  noisiest,  her  grandmother  said :  "My  poor  Devidas, 
what  will  you  name  your  little  un- wanted  child?"  and 
he  answered  in  great  disgust :  "What  do  I  care  what 
she's  called,  she's  nothing  but  a  blot.  To-day  I  had 
dealings  with  a  merchant,  and  while  I  was  waiting  I 
plainly  saw  him  dip  his  pen  in  ink  and  start  to  do 
the  thing  called  writing,  when  lo!  a  splash  of  ink 
dropped  on  the  paper.  'Macha!'  he  cried.  'Blot!  It 
is  no  good,'  and  he  flung  it  aside,  choosing  a  fresh  sheet. 
Well,  this  undesirable  is  also  a  blunder,  not  fit  to  be 
counted  in  the  family." 

So  "Blot"  she  was  called,  although  in  the  language 
of  India  it  sounds  rather  lovelier,  I  think :  Machamyna; 
but  you  will  soon  see  that  being  a  Blot  feels  the  same 
in  any  language.    Rather  an  uncomfortable  "feel"! 

But  have  you  noticed  how  the  Lord  God  has  put 
something  into  even  heathen  mothers'  hearts  which 
makes  them  love  an  awkward,  lonely  child  the  very 


20  India  Inklings 

best  of  all?  So  Pitchamma,  her  mother,  loved  Ma- 
chamma  in  secret,  and  tried  patiently  to  teach  her 
quiet  ways  and  gentle  habits,  so  that  she  might  not 
disturb  that  Man  of  Wrath,  her  father.  But  you  only 
need  to  look  at  the  blot  in  this  book  to  see  that  although 
it  never  says  a  single  word,  yet  every  time  you  turn 
the  page  there  it  is!  Quiet,  perhaps,  but,  oh!  so  con- 
spicuously noticeable.  Thus,  every  time  he  came  in- 
doors, Devidas  saw  Machamma,  and  wished  he  knew 
some  easy  plan  for  getting  rid  of  her.  Which,  you 
must  admit,  was  not  a  very  cheerful  way  to  start  be- 
ing a  baby ! 

But  Machamma  made  the  best  of  it.  Indeed,  she 
was  bubbling  over  with  such  delightful  little  secrets 
of  her  own  that  it  was  a  year  or  two  before  it  dawned 
on  her  what  a  blot  she  was;  you  see,  the  first  year 
there  were  her  ten  fascinating  brown  toes  to  be  counted 
over  and  over  again ;  or,  lying  on  her  back,  there  were 
the  thousand  tickly  flies  to  play  with  while  they  buzzed 
and  buzzed  and  buzzed  the  drowsiest  of  lullabies. 
Then  the  second  year  she  was  very  busy  exploring 
this  queer  place  she  lived  in,  with  its  mud  walls  and 
its  straw  roof  and  cracks  in  its  earthen  floor  where 
grains  of  rice  and  corn  had  fallen  once  upon  a  time, 
and  still  lay  wedged  for  little  brown  fingers  to  pry 
loose.  Not  a  nook  nor  a  cranny  was  there  into  which 
Machamma  did  not  creep,  except  alas !  into  her  father's 
heart,  for  she  had  already  begun  to  discover  the  truth 
about  the  blot  business,  so  that  by  the  time  she  reached 
the  Mud-Pie-Age  she  would  drop  even  the  fattest  and 


Only  a  Blot  21 

most  bewitching  of  these  little  pies  and  scoot  pell-mell 
to  hide  in  the  folds  of  her  mother's  saree  when  she 
heard  him  coming.  Yet  all  on  account  of  a  mud  pie, 
she  .  .  .  but  that  is  another  story ! 


II 

THE  STORY  THAT   ENDS  TWICE 

[^HERE  is  this  to  be  said  about  mud  pies:  you 
simply  cannot  make  them  successfully  out  of 
plain  dust.  The  dust  needs  to  be  properly  wet;  and 
in  India  there  is  not  a  drop  of  rain  for  nine  months 
of  the  year — this  was  one  of  those  dry-season  months, 
yet  here  was  Machamma  wanting  more  than  anything 
else  to  make  pies,  but  altogether  hindered  because  there 
was  no  wetness  anywhere.  Even  the  big  clay  water 
pots  stood  empty.  But  she  knew  where  there  was 
water :  indeed,  the  most  fascinating  water  in  town ! 

It  stood  in  a  tiny  corked  vase  up  on  the  god-shelf, 
with  the  row  of  painted  idols,  and  there  was  a  story 
about  it,  although  she  never  properly  understood  why 
any  one  should  go  to  so  much  trouble  for  such  a  very 
little  bit  of  water.  Why  not  dip  up  all  you  wanted 
from  the  village  well  right  here  at  home  ?  But  it  seems 
that  once  upon  a  time  her  grandfather  had  wanted  to 
find  peace.  They  tell  you  in  India  that  the  best  pos- 
sible way  to  find  peace  is  to  go  off  on  a  search  for 
it,  so  he  went  on  a  very  long  pilgrimage,  with  all 
his  rupees  and  annas  (Indian  coins)  tied  into  a  corner 
of  his  turban.  When  he  left,  Machamma  was  only 
a  baby;  when  he  returned,  she  was  three  years  old — 
and  from  the  stories  he  told  Machamma  knew  there 

could  hardly  be  one  temple  in  all  India  where  he  did 

22 


Blot  Plunges  into  Deep  Trouble    23 


Here  is  an  inkling  about  a  sad  sprinkling  that  made  a  mud 
pie  and  plunged  our  little  Blot  into  deep  trouble ! 


The  Story  That  Ends  Twice        25 

not  stop  to  worship,  seeking  peace,  and  giving  an  anna 
to  the  priest  so  that  the  idol  might  be  awakened. 

For  idols,  it  seems,  although  carved  from  wood  or 
stone  to  sit  motionless  from  one  year's  end  to  the  other, 
sometimes  go  off  on  spirit  journeys;  or — even  with 
eyes  staring  wide  open — they  take  naps.  What  would 
be  the  good  of  traveling  weary  miles  to  worship  them 
if  they  took  no  notice?  But  priests  who  live  in  tem- 
ples understand  the  ways  of  idols,  and  for  a  little 
money  they  will  beat  a  gong  to  recall  the  gods  from 
their  journeys  or  arouse  them  from  their  slumbers. 
You  can  see  what  an  expensive  thing  this  continual 
rousing  would  be  to  a  grandfather  absent  from  home 
for  two  years,  and  how  one  by  one  every  coin  tied 
up  in  his  turban  would  be  given  away.  But  by  that 
time  he  had  reached  the  River  Ganges ;  and  the  River 
Ganges  is  like  no  other  water  on  earth.  Every  inch 
of  it  is  sacred,  the  Hindus  will  tell  you;  every  drop 
of  it  is  holy.  People  who  bathe  in  it  lose  all  their 
sins,  and  people  who  die  on  its  banks  go  straight  to 
Nirvana. 

You  may  be  sure  that  Machamma's  grandfather 
bathed  in  it  (with  ten  thousand  other  pilgrims!)  and 
it  occurred  to  him  that  if  he  only  took  some  Ganges 
water  home  with  him  his  troubles  would  be  over.  So 
he  filled  a  little  vase,  and  started  all  those  weary  miles 
toward  home.  Villagers  along  the  route  treated  him 
with  marvelous  respect,  for  had  he  not  been  at  the 
Ganges?  And  was  he  not,  therefore,  blessed  of  the 
gods?  They  gave  him  curry  and  rice  for  his  meals, 
and  asked  leave  to  touch  his  precious  vase,  for  per- 


26  India  Inklings 

haps  this  might  be  the  nearest  they  would  ever  come 
to  gaining  peace. 

And  it  was  this  very  vase  of  water  at  which  the 
thoughtless  Machamma  stood  gazing  wistfully  on  the 
day  when  her  mud  pies  proved  mudless.  How  she  did 
wish  she  were  taller !  She  stood  on  tiptoe  and  stretched 
out  her  little  brown  arm  as  high  as  it  would  reach, 
but  the  god-shelf  was  still  higher.  There  are  ways 
of  growing  tall-in-a-minute,  however;  and  the  quick- 
est of  these  is  to  stand  on  something. 

Families  in  India  who  sit  on  the  floor  with  their 
legs  tucked  under  them  do  not  have  chairs  or  tables 
in  their  homes,  of  course;  but  there  is  generally  a 
basket  somewhere.  Machamma  found  one  and  dragged 
it  directly  under  the  shelf.  Climbing  on  top,  she 
reached  for  that  just-too-high  vase.  Girls  who  are 
blots  really  should  not  do  such  things,  but  Machamma, 
alas !  was  most  successful  in  her  grasping,  and  pres- 
ently went  pattering  out-of-doors  to  make  the  most 
delightful  mud  you  ever  saw. 

"I  won't  use  all  the  water  right  away,"  said  she 
to  herself,  like  a  very  economical  housekeeper.  "I'll 
make  it  last!"  So  she  dabbled  and  puddled  and  patted 
a  quaint  little  shape,  with  such  complete  forgetting  of 
everything  else  that  it  was  just  as  if  she  were  alone 
in  a  world  without  people.  Whereas  all  the  time  some 
one  was  coming  nearer  step  by  step.  Some  one  who 
thought  she  was  only  a  blot  was  provoked  to  find  a 
blot  having  such  a  blissful  time, — humming,  I  declare! 
Some  one  who  looked  a  little  closer  gave  a  gasp  of 
astonishment,  then  a  roar  of  rage  .   .  .  and  the  first 


The  Story  That  Ends  Twice        27 

thing  poor  Machamma  knew,  she  was  not  feeling  alone 
in  the  world  at  all,  for  some  one  was  shaking  her  so 
violently  that  the  palm-trees  seemed  to  dance  a  dizzy 
jig  before  her  eyes  and  her  teeth  rattled  noisily  against 
each  other. 

"You  horrible  child !  You  wretch  of  a  girl — where 
did  you  get  that  sacred  vase?  Speak  up!  Are  you 
daft?    Are  you  brainless?    Tell  me." 

It  was  hardly  sensible  of  Devidas  to  shake  her  quite 
so  hard  and  then  expect  an  answer,  for  Machamma 
was  too  busy  catching  her  breath  to  manage  a  sen- 
tence. 

"You  provoking  little  baggage !  You  girl-nuisance ! 
Speak — is  this  indeed  my  father's  sacred  vase  of  holy 
Ganges  water?" 

Machamma  choked  out  a  few  words  :  "All  t-t-t-that's 
1-1-1-left,  b-but  I'll  f-f-fill  it  f-f-from  t-the  w-w-well 
again,  f-father." 

"Fill  it  with  ordinary  milage  water?"  gasped  her 
outraged  father.  "You're  crazy!"  And  such  really 
dreadful  things  happened  to  her  then  that  surely  you 
will  not  care  to  hear  how  heathen  fathers  treat  their 
little  heathen  daughters ;  but  the  bruises  on  Machamma's 
arm  could  tell  a  story,  the  tears  in  Machamma's  eyes 
could  tell  a  story, — to  me  those  tears  seem  far  more 
precious  than  that  dirty  stagnant  water  from  the 
Ganges;  so  I  am  glad  that  after  all  the  aw  fulness  was 
over,  there  was  Machamma's  mother  to  creep  in  on 
tiptoe  and  gather  the  little  girl  in  her  arms :  "Oh,  little 
Apple-of-My-Eye,  how  couldst  thou  do  this  foolish- 
ness?    Have  I  not  told  thee  often  not  to  touch  their 


28  India  Inklings 

things?  To  keep  out  of  their  way?  Oh,  my  little 
Jar-of-Milk-and-Honey,  did  they  hurt  thee?  Thy 
mother  feels  that  hurting,  also!" 

The  little  Jar-of-Milk-and-Honey  clung  to  those  dear 
arms;  oh,  I  really  do  not  know  what  little  heathen 
girls  would  do  if  God  had  not  made  mothers  lov- 

But  all  this  time  a  solemn  family  conference  was 
going  on  about  Machamma's  mud  pie.  Grandfather 
said  how  could  it  be  just  a  mud  pie  any  more,  now 
that  it  was  mixed  with  sacred  water?  So  the  first 
thing  anybody  knew  he  and  his  sons  went  to  see  the 
village  idol  maker. 

"There  is  a  thought  in  my  head,"  said  grandfather, 
"that  from  mud  like  this  you  could  make  us  a  god." 

"W-well,"  hesitated  the  man  who  made  idols,  "of 
course  I  might.  It  is  not  a  thing  I  ever  did  before, 
however — to  use  other  people's  mud!  But  I  can  see 
that  this  is  not  ordinary  earth  any  longer.  It  will  cost 
you  many  rupees,  but  I  don't  suppose  mere  money 
makes  a  difference  to  troubled  heads  like  yours." 

"Money  makes  a  great  deal  of  difference,"  Ma- 
chamma's uncles  replied  in  a  scandalized  chorus.  "We 
are  poor.  We  have  little  rice  for  our  stomachs.  We 
have  many  mouths  to  feed.  How  much  will  you 
charge  ?" 

You  should  have  heard  the  bickering  and  bargaining! 

"That  fellow  is  trying  to  take  the  very  eyebrows 
off  our  faces !"  sighed  Devidas. 

"He  will  drive  us  to  drown  in  the  well!"  cried 
Manikam's  father. 


The  Story  That  Ends  Twice        29 

"He  thinks  we  are  rich  Brahmans !"  sneered  grand- 
father. 

"Not  much,"  snapped  the  idol-maker,  and  spat  on 
the  ground  in  disgust.  "You  want  such  a  cheap  idol 
it  will  do  you  no  good!  Take  your  mud  elsewhere, 
I  beg  you." 

Then  every  one  suddenly  noticed  a  thing  they  should 
have  thought  of  before.  The  mud  was  no  longer  mud ! 
All  by  itself  it  had  dried  into  the  shape  Machamma 
had  made — her  funny  little  pie  was  now  baked  as 
hard  as  could  be  by  the  heat  of  India. 

"In  that  case,  of  course,"  said  the  idol-maker,  shrug- 
ging his  shoulders,  "I  should  have  to  wet  it  all  over 
again  with  more  Ganges  water  in  order  to  mold  it 
anew." 

"Impostor !  Cheat !  Sly  dog !"  gasped  grandfather. 
"Do  you  think  I  would  trust  you  with  my  few  remain- 
ing drops  of  water?  I  must  save  them  for  the  time 
when  I  die !  But  I  see  your  craftiness,  you  who  have 
never  traveled  all  those  weary  miles  would  set  aside 
my  Ganges  water  for  yourself  and  use  ordinary  liquid 
in  molding  us  an  idol !  I  see  your  plot !  I  know  you ! 
Come,  my  sons,  let  us  be  gone — we  dare  not  trust  the 
little  that  remains  in  that  vase  to  any  mortal." 

"True!"  said  Machamma's  father. 

"Wise,  indeed!"  said  Manikam's  father. 

"Sensible!"  agreed  the  other  sons. 

"But  what  to  do  with  the  mud  pie  ?"  worried  grand- 
father. 

"Put  it  on  the  god-shelf,  of  course,"  Devidas  sug- 
gested.     And  at   sunset   time  those   six   grown   men 


30  India  Inklings 

walked  down  the  village  street  carrying  that  silly  little 
cake  of  earth ;  but  it  was  a  serious  thing  to  them — for 
there  was  water  in  that  earth  which  had  taken  two 
long  years  of  pilgrimage  to  gain.  A  little  slice  of 
grandfather's  "peace"  was  lost  in  it;  so  up  on  the  shelf 
it  went,  elbowing  the  painted  idols ;  and  down  in  grand- 
father's heart  was  a  sense  of  worship  toward  it  and 
every  morning  granny  laid  a  flower  before  it,  or  a 
little  rice.  So  that  it  was  almost  as  if  Machamma 
had  brought  them  a  new  god ! 

But  this  story  ends  twice;  and  by  and  by  you  shall 
hear  of  another  God  whom  Machamma  also  brought 
home  to  them :  a  very  real  God,  not  made  of  mud 
or  daubed  with  paint.  Yet  in  the  weary  meantime 
Machamma  lies  whimpering  in  the  corner,  for  bruises 
hurt,  and  this  little  maker  of  images  does  not  dream 
that  she  will  ever  be  a  Voice  crying  in  the  wilderness : 
"Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord,  make  straight  in  the 
desert  a  highway  for  our  God." 


Ill 

WHEN  MANIKAM  MINDED  HIS  MOTHER 

MACHAMMA  crouched  in  a  corner  and  looked  at 
her  cousin  Manikam  with  the  roundest  eyes  in 
India.  For  Manikam  would  not  do  the  thing  his 
mother  ordered.  Manikam  never  minded  his  mother. 
Boys  weren't  expected  to!  Oh,  how  grand  it  must 
be  to  thrash  around  with  your  arms  hitting  everybody 
in  sight  and  shouting :  "I  won't !  I  won't !  I  won't ! 
I  won't  go  near  that  dreadful  big  thing.  I  won't  hang 
a  wreath  of  marigolds  around  its  neck.  They  are 
paper  marigolds,  anyway.  I  won't  go!  I  won't!  I 
won't !     I  won't  light  the  incense  stick — I  won't!" 

"Just  listen  to  this  fine  little  grandson  of  mine," 
said  granny.  "None  of  my  own  sons  ever  showed  such 
a  fine  spirit." 

"None  of  them  ever  got  his  own  way  like  Manikam 
does,"  snickered  the  Old  Aunt  gleefully.  "Look  at  the 
bruise  he  made  on  my  arm!  He's  a  fine  strong  boy. 
A  big  brave  boy." 

All  the  in-between  aunts  began  chanting  a  sing-song 
chorus :  "Manikam  is  brave — he  knows  he  is  his 
mother's  oldest  son — he  knows  he  does  not  have  to 
mind  her — oldest  sons  never  mind  their  mothers — they 
are  brave — they  know  that  some  day  she  will  have  to 
mind  them!" 

Even  down  in  her  safe  corner  Machamma  shuddered. 

31 


32  India  Inklings 

Suppose  he  should  come  near  her  with  those  fists! 
But  oh,  how  grand  to  be  a  boy  and  get  your  own  way ! 
How  often  Pitchamma  had  whispered  to  her  little 
daughter  that  if  she  would  only  be  very,  very  good 
all  her  life  the  gods  might  turn  her  into  a  boy  when 
she  died.  Think  of  coming  back  to  the  earth  as  a  boy. 
To  be  born  again  as  a  boy.  No  wonder  all  the  girls 
were  wishing  it !  Boys  were  always  right.  They  had 
their  own  way.  They  bossed  the  women  around.  They 
did  not  mind  grannies  or  Old  Aunts.  The  more  noise 
they  made  and  the  crosser  they  grew,  the  more  people 
said :  "Splendid  boy !  A  son  to  be  proud  of !  A  son 
to  brag  about  in  the  market-place!" 

Quite  different  from  being  a  Blot,  thought  Ma- 
chamma.    A  silent,  tongue-tied  Blot! 

Then  into  this  scene  of  Manikam's  noise  came  grand- 
father. Things  quieted  down.  Every  one  stood  stock- 
still. 

"What  is  this  all  about?"  asked  grandfather. 

Manikam  strutted  up  and  down  the  room,  waving 
a  disgusted  hand :  "These  women  keep  plaguing  me  to 
go  to  the  temple.  They  want  me  to  worship  the  idol. 
I  will  not  worship  that  idol.  He  stares  at  me  with  big 
white  eyes.  He  grins  at  me  with  big  red  lips.  He 
has  big  strong  fingers.  He  towers  way  up  in  the  air. 
He  is  dreadful  to  look  at !  I  do  not  want  to  hang  a 
wreath  of  marigolds  around  his  neck.  I  won't  go  near 
him!" 

Grandfather  winked  his  eye  at  the  Old  Aunt :  "That's 
the  way  to  talk !  But  don't  you  know  that  idol  is  just 
wood?     He   can't   move  his  strong   fingers   to   grab 


You  Can  Hardly  Blame  Manikam    33 


You  can  hardly  blame  Manikam  for  not  wanting  to  get  near 
enough  to  garland  this  hideous,  unlovable  idol ;  cocoanut-throwing 
was   more   fun,  but  unsuccessful,  alas ! 


When  Manikam  Minded  His  Mother    3$ 

you.  These  women  have  gone  the  wrong  way  about 
urging  you,  of  course.  Women  have  no  brains  in  their 
heads.  But  you  and  I  will  go  to  the  temple  together. 
We  will  take  some  rice  on  a  big  green  leaf." 

"But  I  am  very  hungry  for  that  rice  myself,"  groaned 
Manikam,  rubbing  his  empty  stomach. 

"Of  course  you  are  hungry.  Aren't  we  all  hungry? 
Isn't  there  famine  in  town?  Nobody  has  enough  to 
eat,  for  the  rains  do  not  come  and  the  crops  are  dying. 
Maybe  the  god  is  hungry,  my  boy;  maybe  he  is  angry 
because  you  never  kneel  to  worship  him;  maybe  he 
would  like  it  if  you  garlanded  him  and  prayed:  'Oh, 
send  us  food!  Send  us  rain!'  He  really  might  send 
it,  you  know.  You  never  can  tell  what  will  tickle  their 
fancy." 

So  Manikam  minded  his  mother  by  minding  his 
grandfather.  Boys  had  to -mind  Indian  grandfathers! 
Manikam  marched  off  carrying  the  snowy  rice  on  his 
green  leaf.  The  priest  struck  a  gong  which  echoed  all 
through  the  temple,  then  they  went  inside.  It  was 
dark  and  gruesome  after  the  blinding  sunlight  out- 
doors. In  spite  of  the  heat,  Manikam  shivered.  But 
just  as  they  told  him  to  do,  he  knelt  and  laid  the  rice 
on  the  big  painted  knees  of  the  idol. 

"Send  us  rain !  Send  us  food !  Be  pleased  to  send 
us  rain!  Be  pleased  to  send  us  food!"  he  piped  out 
in  a  thin  little  voice  that  sent  cold  shudders  down  his 
back. 

Then  he  was  lifted  high  up  to  loop  his  paper  garland 
around  the  dreadful  wooden  neck  and  to  pray  into  that 


36  India  Inklings 

mammoth  wooden  ear :  "We  beseech  thee,  hear  us ! 
We  beseech  thee,  hear  us." 

And  that  was  all  anybody  could  do,  of  course. 

But  just  as  he  and  his  grandfather  left  the  temple, 
he  looked  over  his  shoulder  to  be  sure  that  those  evil 
hands  were  not  clutching  at  his  little  bare  legs,  when 
lo!  he  saw  a  strange  sight:  the  priest  was  eating  the 
rice! 

"I  wanted  that  rice  myself,"  Manikam  cried.  "I  am 
hollow  all  up  and  down  inside  me.  Why  does  he  eat 
it  ?  What  will  the  god  do  to  him  ?  Will  he  strike  him 
dead?" 

"Tut!  tut!"  mumbled  grandfather.  "You  talk  too 
much.  Those  silly  women  spoil  you."  But  he  also 
would  have  liked  the  rice.  He  felt  very  thin  and 
old  and  tired.  He  hoped  the  god  would  like  to  have 
his  priest  so  plump  and  well  fed  from  eating  every- 
body's offerings.  Of  course  one  never  knew  what 
would  take  an  idol's  fickle  fancy.  .  .  . 

Quite  evidently  it  made  no  difference  to  them  that 
one  small  scared  boy  had  hung  his  garland  and  gone 
without  his  supper.  After  a  rainless  week  of  waiting 
the  priests  agreed  it  would  be  well  to  give  their  god 
an  outing.     Perhaps  he  was  bored  indoors. 

You  never  saw  a  stranger  sight  in  all  your  life : 
that  monstrous  doll-like  image  taking  a  ride  through 
the  streets  in  a  great  gold  cart.  Shining  it  was! 
Gleaming  it  was !  Much  decorated  it  was !  And  drawn 
by  a  hundred  hot,  perspiring  Brahmans. 

Everybody  in  town  watched  it  go  by,  shouting,  sing- 
ing, dancing,  praying,  surging  left  and  surging  right, 


When  Manikam  Minded  His  Mother    37 

yelling,  screaming,  swarming  around  the  golden  wheels, 
beating  their  breasts  and  crying :  "Remember  us  once 
more !     Remember  us  and  save  us !" 

This  was  the  day  when  Manikam  really  did  mind  his 
mother. 

"Sweet  little  son,"  she  said,  "see — here  are  two 
cocoanuts.  I  was  saving  them  for  ourselves,  but  this 
is  such  a  grand  festival,  surely  we  should  please  the 
idol  and  not  ourselves.  So  take  the  cocoanuts,  lad; 
and  when  the  cart  comes  past  throw  them  carefully, 
aim  them  directly  under  the  wheels.  For  if  the  cocoa- 
nuts  break,  then  good  luck  will  be  ours !" 

Manikam  grinned.  This  was  more  in  his  line. 
"Watch  me !"  he  boasted,  and  flung  the  first  cocoanut. 
But  it  rolled  far  astray  and  a  Brahman  priest  picked 
it  up. 

"Oh,  throw  straighter,  lad!" 

Manikam  minded. 

Plop!  went  the  second  cocoanut — crash!  splash!  It 
had  broken  on  the  wheels. 

"Now  the  idol  will  send  us  good  luck !"  cried  grand- 
father. 

"Good  luck!"  echoed  the  uncles,  all  of  whom  were 
hungry. 

"Good  luck !"  repeated  the  aunts,  much  hungrier  than 
the  uncles, — since  men  eat  first  in  India  and  women 
have  only  their  leavings. 

"Good  luck  is  on  its  way  to  us,"  chirped  Machamma 
to  herself,  skipping  a  feeble  little  skip  of  joy,  and 
painting  pictures  in  her  mind  of  the  things  they  would 
be  eating  soon,  when  this  famine  was  over. 


38  India  Inklings 

But  she  waited. 

And  waited. 

And  waited! 

The  middle  aunt  fell  sick.  She  died.  She  was  too 
hungry  to  wait  another  minute. 

The  weather  grew  sizzling  hot.  The  grass  was 
burned  to  a  cinder.  The  wells  dried  up.  The  pools 
dried  up.  The  cattle  hung  their  heads,  and  their  tongues 
lolled  out  of  their  mouths  pantingly.  Everybody 
seemed  to  be  sick.  You  never  knew  in  the  evening 
who  would  be  gone  by  morning.  The  low-caste  people 
who  were  hired  to  beat  drums  beat  them  from  morn- 
ing till  night  to  drive  away  the  evil  cholera  spirits. 

It  was  all  people  could  do  to  keep  the  precious  Tulsi 
tree  alive. 

Manikam  was  disgusted. 

"Where  are  the  gods  anyway?  Why  did  they  take 
my  rice?  Why  did  they  take  my  cocoanuts?  Why 
don't  they  do  something?" 

"Alas,"  sighed  granny,  "the  gods  seem  to  have  for- 
gotten us." 

"The  gods  must  hate  the  town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi 
Tree!"  groaned  grandfather. 

"Maybe  they  are  just  off  a  journey  somewhere," 
sighed  Devidas. 

"Maybe  they  are  asleep,"  ventured  Pitchamma. 

"They  are  so  hard  to  please,"  everybody  agreed. 

"Why  are  they  hard  to  please?"  asked  Manikam. 
"How  can  pieces  of  wood  be  so  cruel?" 

"How,  indeed !  You  talk  too  much,"  said  his  father. 
"These   women  have   spoiled  you.      You   will   never 


When  Manikam  Minded  His  Mother    39 

discover  this  riddle  of  the  gods — why  they  delight  to 
plague  us  and  tease  us  and  starve  us." 

"Some  day  I  will  discover  that  riddle !"  boasted  Man- 
ikam. 

Wonderful  of  him !  sighed  Machamma.  Boys  could 
do  anything!  Little  dreaming  that  she  was  going  to 
discover  the  riddle  also. 


IV 

MY  BONNIE  LIES  OVER  THE  OCEAN 

ALL  this  time,  over  in  America,  there  was  Bonnie 
Aunt.  Tim  and  Tom  were  quite  sure  that  there 
was  no  one  in  the  world  (except  their  mother,  of 
course)  who  was  quite  as  beautiful  as  Bonnie  Aunt : 
she  had  golden  hair  and  adorable  twinkles  like  stars 
in  her  eyes,  and  when  she  laughed  she  sounded  like 
lovely  little  bells.  Her  real  name  was  Anne  Laurence, 
but  her  friends  thought  this  seemed  so  much  like  a 
quaint  old  ballad  that  they  called  her  "Bonnie  Annie 
Laurie,"  which  the  twins  had  shortened  into  Bonnie 
Aunt.  A  very  precious  person,  not  at  all  the  kind 
to  be  parted  from— ever.  Yet  one  very  rainy  day  she 
came  over  to  see  their  mother,  and  although  the  visit 
began  just  as  visits  should,  the  first  thing  anybody 
knew  mother  was  crying  as  if  her  heart  would  break 
while  Bonnie  Aunt  kept  saying :  "Oh,  please  don't  take 
it  this  way,  Dora;  I'll  be  home  again  in  seven  years. 
It  won't  seem  like  any  time  at  all!" 

Their  mother  could  not  agree  to  this  thought,  but 
she  dried  her  eyes  and  smiled  like  rainbows  after  April 
showers  as  she  said :  "You're  the  bravest,  dearest  girl 
in  all  the  world,  Annie  Laurie,  and  I'm  going  to  be 
enormously  proud  of  you !" 

All  of  which  was  a  deep  mystery  to  Tim  and  Tom, 

of  course;  so  on  the  first  free  moment  they  cornered 

40 


Quaint  Old  Full-Sailed  Vessel      41 


When  you  were  very  little  and  used  to  hum  "My  Bonnie  Lies 
Over  the  Ocean,"  it  probably  called  up  in  your  mind's  eye  some 
quaint,  old,  full-sailed  vessel  on  the  deep  blue  sea.  The  beautiful 
part  of  it  is  that  on  every  such  deep  blue  sea,  for  hundreds  and 
hundreds  of  years,  there  has  always  been  a  ship  a-sailing  carrying 
some  one  on  board,  like  Bonnie  Aunt,  who  has  heard  the 
Saviour's  Go  Yc,  and  has  set  forth  with  Bibles  and  pills  to 
"take  a  town." 


My  Bonnie  Lies  Over  the  Ocean    43 

Bonnie  Aunt  and  put  her  through  a  course  of  ques- 
tionings. 

"You  made  mother  cry!"  Tim  accused  her. 

"I  know  it!"  agreed  Bonnie  Aunt.  "But  she  ended 
up  by  smiling." 

"Yes,  but  that  was  just  the  kind  of  smile  you  smile 
outside  when  you  aren't  nearly  through  crying  inside 
yet.    We  know,  don't  we,  Tom?" 

Tom  nodded,  and  immediately  asked:  "Where  is 
this  place  you  are  going  that  will  take  seven  years 
before  you  get  back?" 

"Little  pitchers  have  big  ears !"  she  smiled,  shaking 
her  finger  at  him.  "Well,  my  dears,  it's  a  big  place 
called  India.     Did  you  ever  hear  of  it?" 

"Of  course!"  cried  Tim. 

"It's  in  the  geography!"  cried  Tom. 

"Indeed  it  is,  Twinnies.  And  I  suppose  you  know 
by  this  time  that  places  on  a  map  are  generally  alive 
with  people.  So  I'm  going  over  there  to  live  with 
some  of  them." 

"The  very  idea!"  Tim  reproved  her.  "Aren't  we 
good  enough  to  live  with?" 

"That's  the  trouble :  you're  much,  much  too  good." 

Tom  chuckled ;  for  it  must  be  admitted  that  goodness 
never  had  seemed  his  specialty  before!  But  Tim,  being 
a  girl,  was  not  nearly  so  much  concerned  with  her 
own  apparent  perfections  as  with  the  awful  fact  that 
Bonnie  Aunt  was  going  somewhere  where  the  people 
were  not  good  at  all.  "Will  they  be  dreadfully  bad?" 
she  asked  breathlessly,  with  visions  of  pirates  and  ogres 
and  villains  parading  before  her  mind's  eye. 


44  India  Inklings 

"No,"  Bonnie  Aunt  assured  her,  tenderly,  "not 
wicked  at  all,  just  very  mistaken  in  all  their  ways.  So 
we're  going  over  to  tell  them  a  better  way." 

"We?"  cried  Tim,  pouncing  on  that  one  astonishing 
little  word.  "Oh,  then  you  aren't  going  to  India  all 
alone?" 

"No,  I  thought  maybe  I'd  get  married!"  (And  her 
cheeks  were  suddenly  quite  pink.) 

Here  was  news,  indeed,  to  Tim;  but  Tom  skipped 
over  all  this  nonsense  of  husbands  and  weddings,  de- 
manding to  know  exactly  what  Bonnie  Aunt  and  this 
husband-person  were  going  to  be  over  in  India,  any- 
how. 

"I  think,"  said  Bonnie  Aunt  slowly  and  thought- 
fully, "that  we  will  be — soldiers." 

Tom  looked  at  her  in  grave  doubt.  "But  you're  only 
a  lady,  so  how  can  you  fight  ?  And  do  you  know  how 
to  shoot  a  gun?" 

"Even  ladies  make  passable  soldiers,"  she  protested, 
"and  we  shan't  need  guns.  You  see,  we're  going  to 
be  Christian  soldiers,  the  kind  you  sing  about  in  church : 
'Onward,  Christian  soldiers,  marching  as  to  war.'  It's 
a  totally  different  kind  of  war  from  that  horrible 
affair  in  Europe  recently.  In  our  war,  instead  of  guns 
we  are  to  use  Bibles  and  pills." 

Tom  was  speechless. 

"I  think  it  sounds  risky,  Bonnie  Aunt,"  Tim  said, 
patting  her  arm.  "Bibles  are  all  right  for  ministers 
to  get  sermons  from,  and  for  Sunday-school  lessons, 
but  you  can't  fight  with  them.  They're  too  little  and 
too  soft  and — " 


My  Bonnie  Lies  Over  the  Ocean    45 

Bonnie  Aunt  reached  over  to  pick  up  a  Bible  from 
the  table.  "Twinnies,"  she  said,  "there  isn't  a  gun  in 
the  whole  world  that  can  do  what  this  Book  does! 
An  ordinary  soldier  takes  his  gun,  and  his  captain  tells 
him  where  to  shoot.  Bing!  Bing! — and  somebody's 
dead.  Or,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  a  whole  regiment  of 
soldiers  turn  their  guns  on  some  little  town  belonging 
to  the  enemy ;  all  day  long  there  is  the  ceaseless  Boom! 
Boom!  Boom!  of  giant  guns,  and  by  nightfall  there 
are  smoldering  ruins,  roofless  houses,  dead  men  in  the 
streets,  cripples  everywhere,  a  few  cowering  widows, 
a  few  wailing  orphans.  That's  how  guns  'take  a  town/ 
isn't  it?" 

The  twins  nodded  their  two  heads  and  stared  with 
their  four  spellbound  eyes. 

"Well,  we're  being  sent  over  the  ocean  by  our  Gap- 
tain  to  'take  a  town,'  too.  But  we're  going  to  love  it 
into  surrendering!  Love  it  with  Bibles  and  pills,  till 
the  widows  and  orphans  and  cripples  are  well  and  whole 
and  happy.  We  shall  need  to  start  a  little  church 
and  a  little  school  and  a  little  hospital.  Oh,  I  expect 
we  shall  be  very  busy  making  ourselves  go  around  into 
all  the  places  where  they  will  need  us !" 

"Somehow,  you  seem  too  little  and  golden  to  go  so 
far  away,"  Tim  cried,  still  patting  the  precious  arm. 

"They  mustn't  go  hurting  you,  off  there!"  Tom 
growled  in  a  let-me-catch-them-trying-it  sort  of  voice. 

"Oh,  they  won't,"  Bonnie  Aunt  assured  him.  "I 
think  they  will  find,  deep  down  in  their  hearts,  that 
they  are  hungry  for  my  Book." 

So  in  the  course  of  time  there  was  the  prettiest  wed- 


46  India  Inklings 

ding  ever  held  in  that  city,  with  the  organ  thundering 
forth  "Here  Comes  the  Bride"  and  the  bridesmaids 
in  prim  yellow  dresses  and  the  bride  all  shimmering 
white, — very,  very  happy. 

"Not  a  bit  like  a  soldier,  though,"  thought  Tom  with 
some  misgivings ;  but  fortunately  the  groom  looked 
strong  enough  for  two.  Since  he  was  the  only  uncle 
the  twins  had  ever  had,  they  decided  he  was  going  to 
prove  a  good  investment!  Although  his  idea  of  a 
honeymoon  was  like  nothing  Tim  had  ever  heard  of 
before.  For  imagine  the  bridegroom  spending  his  first 
six  months  as  an  interne  in  a  New  York  hospital,  riding 
in  ambulances  to  accidents,  at  everybody's  beck  and 
call  from  morning  till  night ! 

"What  will  Bonnie  Aunt  be  doing  with  herself  all 
that  time  ?" 

"Now  don't  you  go  worrying  about  that  young  lady's 
feeling  lonesome,  my  dears!  She's  planning  to  cram 
her  nice  little  head  so  full  of  new  ideas  that  I'm  in 
grave  danger  of  being  crowded  out  of  her  memory: 
she's  going  to  study  in  a  Bible  Training  School  all 
morning,  take  a  Home  Nursing  course  all  afternoon, 
and  finish  off  the  day  by  attending  sociological-philan- 
thropic-social-service lectures  all  evening.  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  my !"  breathed  the  twins  in  a  weak  duet. 

"Exactly!"  agreed  the  groom,  very  solemnly. 
"Fancy  having  any  one  so  wondrous  wise  in  the  fam- 
ily!   It's  a  compliment  none  of  us  deserve." 

"I  think,"  said  Tim,  bashfully,  "that  you  probably 
know  a  lot  yourself,  only  you  don't  let  on!" 

"Hear!     Hear!"  cried  the  new  uncle.     "Just  for 


My  Bonnie  Lies  Over  the  Ocean    47 

that,  I  will  send  you  an  elephant  as  soon  as  ever  I 
get  to  India." 

"A  big  one?"  Tom  inquired  anxiously. 

"Betwixt  and  between,  sir !  And  now  I  really  think 
this  poor  bridegroom  ought  to  shake  hands  with  the 
departing  wedding  guests." 

As  he  strode  away,  Tim  sighed :  "I  think  he's  going 
to  be  an  awfully  suitable  uncle  for  us." 

"Suitable?"  sniffed  Tom.  "Why  he's— he's— per- 
feet!" 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

Six  months  later,  all  the  Laurences  went  to  New 
York  to  see  "My  Bonnie  go  over  her  ocean."  But  this 
is  part  of  the  story  to  be  skipped,  for  the  grown-up 
part  of  the  family  were  crying,  Tim  detested  the  shrill 
whistles  shrieking  on  Bonnie  Aunt's  ship,  Tom  thought 
it  a  mean  shame  that  he  could  not  be  a  sailor  then  and 
there.  (A  ship  seen  near-to  was  too  wonderful  to 
leave!)  Altogether  it  was  not  a  pleasant  day,  and 
when  the  left-behind  part  of  the  family  boarded  the 
train  that  would  carry  them  back  to  their  home  in 
Ohio,  Mrs.  Laurence  was  glad  that  the  twins  had  dis- 
covered a  game  which  could  last  all  day.  A  game 
called  "Steeples." 

Of  course  they  had  always  known  that  there  were 
church  spires  in  their  own  city.  With  two  good  eyes 
you  were  sure  to  notice  one  on  any  walk  you  chose  to 
take.  But  they  had  not  realized  that  America  was 
such  a  land-of-spires  until  their  train  went  flying  west- 
ward. Tom  sat  on  one  side  of  the  car,  Tim  on  the 
other,  counting;  and  it  is  a  fact  that  in  almost  every 


48  India  Inklings 

place  they  dashed  through  Tim  would  call :  "My  town 
has  a  steeple !  A  white  one,  Tom."  "That's  nothing," 
Tom  called  back,  "there's  one  on  my  side  of  the 
track,  too." 

Steeples  never  seemed  to  fail !  Except  in  one  small 
town  where  not  a  spire  was  visible.  Tom  never  quite 
forgave  that  town  for  being  on  his  side,  especially  as 
Tim  said  that  if  it  had  been  on  her  side  there  would 
have  had  to  be  a  steeple,  or  she'd  know  the  reason  why ! 
(As  if  she  could  have  stepped  off  the  train  and  built 
one  then  and  there!) 

"Mother,  it's  the  only  place  in  all  America  that  has 
no  church,  I  guess,"  Tom  said.    "Why  don't  they?" 

"Perhaps  they  meet  in  the  schoolhouse  on  Sundays," 
she  suggested.  Then  when  it  grew  too  dark  to  count 
steeples,  the  twins  sat  down  beside  her  and  asked  a 
few  questions  :  Why  were  there  spires  ?  What  were 
they  for? 

"I  think,"  said  Mrs.  Lawrence,  "that  spires  tower- 
ing up  in  the  sky  are  God's  exclamation  points — like 
this: 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
and  the  thing  they  cry  to  men  is  :  'Watch !  Look !  Lis- 
ten !'  Half  the  people  are  so  busy  doing  their  own 
things  that  they  bustle  past  and  never  notice  steeples 
or  think  of  God  at  all;  probably  that  is  why  some 
churches  hang  a  bell  up  in  their  spires,  ringing  it  one 

day  in  seven : 

' Ding-dong, 

Is  something  wrong? 

Come  here, 

God's  near!' 


My  Bonnie  Lies  Over  the  Ocean    49 

So  some  people  go  to  sit  in  the  pews,  while  others  stay 
home.  Or  perhaps  there's  a  light  in  the  steeple  to 
remind  us  all  through  the  night  that  God  Himself  is 
light  and  that  we  must  carry  our  church  to  those  who 
sit  in  darkness,  just  as  Bonnie  Aunt  is  carrying  it  over 
the  ocean  this  very  minute." 

"Carrying  our  church?  Oh,  mother,  how  could  she? 
The  steeple  would  surely  have  toppled  over  and  spilled 
all  along  the  railroad  track  long  before  it  reached  the 
ocean,  and  it  weighs  such  tons  and  tons  it  surely  would 
sink  the  ship !" 

"Silly !"  laughed  Tom.  "You  don't  mean  the  stone- 
and-brick  church,  do  you,  mother  ?" 

She  shook  her  head.  "A  church  is  the  love  and 
the  service  of  God  in  the  hearts  of  a  group  of  Chris- 
tians! And  love  can  go  anywhere;  and  service  can 
be  tied  up  in  very  little  bundles !  You  could  even  tie 
it  up  yourselves  to  mail  to  India." 

"How?"  they  questioned  eagerly. 

"Scrapbooks,"  she  answered,  ticking  the  things  off 
on  her  fingers,  "old  postals  with  fresh  ppner  pasted 
over  the  used  part;  little  dressed  dolls  that  button  and 
unbutton ;  pencils ;  pads ;  pins ;  oh,  a  dozen  little  happy 
things—" 

"We'd  love  to!" 

"We  could  get  our  friends  to  help!" 

"We  could  have  a  Box  Party !" 

"We  could  buy  things  with  our  birthday  money!" 

"We  could  earn  money  by  collecting  old  newspapers 
to  sell  to  the  ragman !" 

"We  could  have  a  little  fair!" 


50  India  Inklings 

Even  the  colored  porter  had  an  inkling  of  the  fun 
this  was  going  to  be,  for  as  he  turned  their  seats  into 
amusing  little  beds  behind  green  curtains  he  said,  grin- 
ning: "I  'spect  dat  lady  am  gwine  ter  git  a  powerful 
monstrous  box!  I  reckon  dey'll  jess  have  ter  charter 
one  of  dem  freight  steamers  ter  fetch  it  over  de  ocean, 
'deed  dey  will!" 


ONE  TO  BEGIN,  TWO  TO  MAKE  READY,  AND  THREE  TO  GO ! 

EAR  TWINNIES, 


D 


"The  time  has  come,"  the  walrus  said, 

"To  talk  of  many  things — 

Of  ships  and  sails  and  sealing-wax 

And  cabbages  and  kings, 

And  why  the  sea  is  boiling  hot, 

And  whether  pigs  have  wings — " 

I  don't  know  about  winged  pigs,  my  dears,  but  now 
that  at  last  your  Bonnie  lies  over  the  ocean  she  could 
write  volumes  on  ships  and  sails  and  sealing-wax  (to 
fasten  us  on  deck,  of  course),  and  when  we  skimmed 
through  the  Red  (Hot!)  Sea  we  knew  it  was  boiling! 
Then  came  two  dreadful  days  when  the  winds  blew 
the  waves  mountain-high  and  hollowed  them  out  valley- 
deep,  so  that  the  front  end  of  our  boat  knocked  down 
the  stars  while  the  back  end  plunged  straight  through 
to  Kalamazoo.  Very  unexpected,  and  I  should  have 
worried  more  about  it  only  in  another  two  days  we 
were  on  dry  land.  And,  oh,  my  dears,  India  is  a  dry 
land!  Not  a  drop  of  rain  ever  falls  for  nine  months 
of  the  year,  anyhow;  and  this  year  it  skipped  the  other 
three  months  also. 

It  is  such  a  brown  land  that  we  are  glad  the  brown 
people  wear  such  bright  colors,  the  men  in  gaudy  tur- 
bans— big  bulby  affairs — look   for  all  the  world  like 

51 


52  India  Inklings 

giant  tulips  marching  around  a  garden.  The  little 
brown  ladies  wear  sarees  draped  and  looped  around 
them  without  a  pin  or  a  button  anywhere.  It  worries 
me!  For  every  other  minute  they  have  to  loop  them- 
selves in  place  all  over  again,  then  reloop,  then  re- 
reloop,  then  re-re-reloop,  etc.,  all  day  long.  Their 
little  tinkling  bracelets  and  necklaces  and  anklets  look 
charming;  but  what  would  you  say  to  an  ear-ring 
dangling  from  your  nose?  The  little  brown  children 
seem  to  wear  nothing  at  all,  maybe  a  bead  or  two ;  but 
it's  so  hot,  and  they  don't  need  much. 

And  what  do  you  suppose  we  two  big  grown-ups 
are  doing?  Learning  to  read  and  write,  of  course! 
Every  blessed  morning  we  rise  with  the  sun;  about 
seven  o'clock  our  school  begins.  The  politest  munshi 
(teacher)  in  a  huge  scarlet  turban  comes  in  salaaming 
— that's  the  way  to  say  How  do  you  do?  in  India; 
instead  of  shaking  hands,  touch  your  right  hand  grace- 
fully against  your  forehead  and  say  "Salaam!"  I 
love  it!  Also  it's  the  one  remark  I'm  sure  of  saying 
properly.  Our  munshi  tucks  his  legs  under  him  and 
very  solemnly  seats  himself  on  the  floor,  while  his 
school  seat  themselves  upon  two  chairs  and  look  down 
very  solemnly  at  "Teacher."  New  languages  are  the 
slipperiest  things  to  learn — you  think  you  have  that 
nice  little  new  word  pigeonholed  ready  to  use,  but 
when  you  hurry  for  it,  there's  just  the  hole.  I'm  all 
hole!  Your  new  uncle  is  quite  at  the  head  of  our 
school,  I  assure  you;  but  then  I'm  always  next  to  the 
head.  (Please  don't  say  I  have  to  be,  since  there  are 
only  two  scholars.) 


Elephant  Tail  and  Other  Tales     53 


Here 


is 
an 


elephant 
tail 
and 
other 
tales 
which 


an 

elephant 
who 
keeps 

his 
eyes 
open 
can  . 

see   almost   any    day    in    India! 


One,  Two,  Three,  Go!  55 

The  quicker  we  learn  the  language,  the  quicker  we 
can  begin  doing  the  big  work  waiting  for  us  to  do  in 
that  dear  little  village  somewhere  to  which  we  shall 
be  assigned.  I  read  the  other  day  that  "if  a  missionary 
had  begun  to  visit  the  villages  of  India  on  the  day 
Christ  was  born,  and  had  preached  the  gospel  in  one 
village  each  day  from  then  until  now,  he  would  not  yet 
have  reached  but  hplf  the  villages !"  So  you  see  why 
we  are  eager  to  begin,  for  there  are  only  5,000  of  us 
missionaries  for  300,000,000  persons;  if  you  do  a  little 
sum  in  long  division  you  will  discover  that  this  gives 
each  missionary  600,000  persons  to  reach.  That  is 
twice  as  big  as  the  city  you  live  in!  So  I  haven't  a 
minute  to  lose,  have  I  ?    Your  busy,  loving 

Bonnie  Aunt. 

*****  *•*]  •' 

Salaam,  oh,  Tim,  oh,  Tom! 

It  is  raining  like  cats  and  dogs  (a  kitten  and  a  puppy 
have  just  landed  on  the  window-sill!)  and  all  India  is 
sighing  with  relief  that  eighteen  months  of  drought  are 
ended.  Yesterday  there  didn't  seem  to  be  a  drop  in 
sight,  and  we  had  our  first  (maybe  our  last)  elephant 
ride.  Your  brave  and  valiant  aunt  prefers  the  wildest 
storm  ever  brewed  on  the  Atlantic-Mediterranean-Red- 
or-any-other-sea !  But  personally  I  thought  elephant- 
eering  rather  tame  sport. 

The  only  peculiar  part  is  getting  on  board  the  wee, 
modest,  timid,  little  beastie.  Even  with  his  legs  neatly 
folded  under  him  he  towers  up  into  the  air  like  a 
young  mountain,  so  we  had  to  provide  a  stepladder  to 
reach  the  little  veranda-affair  on  his  back.     Very  cozy 


56  India  Inklings 

we  all  felt,  wedged  into  that  howdah  like  pieces  of  a 
picture  puzzle.  Then  the  driver  said  G'dap.  And  the 
elephant  g' dapped !  He  had  to  begin  doing  it  with  his 
hind  legs  first,  so  we  all  lurched  forward  rather  wildly. 
Your  aunt  had  visions  of  herself  plunging  into  mid-air, 
so  she  threw  her  arms  around  the  neck  of  the  very 
proper  English  lady  who  was  giving  us  the  ride.  A 
Duchess  she  was,  too!  Imagine  being  so  familiar 
right  away ;  but  she  was  very  nice  about  being  choked, 
even  though  Bonnie  Aunt  could  not  be  persuaded  to 
release  the  Duchess  until  the  elephant  had  unfolded  all 
his  remaining  legs,  lurching  us  to  all  points  of  the 
compass.  When  he  was  finally  all  "up,"  Bonnie  Aunt 
freed  our  hostess  and  was  so  mortified  to  have  choked 
a  Duchess  nearly  to  death  (they  are  getting  scarce,  too) 
that  she  made  matters  worse  by  saying  she  had  sup- 
posed she  was  strangling  me!  Missionary  doctors  are 
even  scarcer  than  duchesses,  and  a  bit  more  important, 
I  think. 

I  sent  you  an  elephant  to-day ;  hoping  he  may  prove 
satisfactory  to  all  parties  concerned,  I  am 

Your  affectionate  uncle, 

Harry. 

[•'.  >!  !•"  >  •  .•!  • 

Mr.  William  B.  Laurence,  D.O.O.U. 

Dear  Will :  I  have  been  so  busy  for  several  months 
that  letters  have  been  impossible,  but  this  brief  note 
is  to  inform  you,  sir,  that  you  now  belong  to  the 
Distinguished  Order  of  Uncles,  sir;  your  new  nephew 
having  arrived  two  days  ago  and  looking  so  exactly 
like  you  that  we  instantly  named  him  William  Laurence 


One,  Two,  Three,  Go!  57 

Drake.  A  very  healthy  youngster  with  such  a  remark- 
able voice  that  we  think  he  is  destined  to  make  a  better 
missionary  than  either  of  us.  In  another  three  months 
we  think  the  new  Billy  II.  will  be  transportable  to 
whatever  village  we  are  assigned,  so  it  will  literally  be 
a  case  of  One  to  Begin,  Two  to  Make  Ready,  and  Three 
to  Go. 

Will  write  more  later.    Love  to  all  of  you  from  us. 

Cordially  yours, 

Henry  Drake. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • ' 

Dear  Tim  and  Tom, 

You  deserve  a  letter  in  reply  to  the  fine  ones  you 
sent  me,  so  here  goes !  I  could  even  write  you  in  this 
new  language,  only  you  would  never  know  what  I  was 
saying.  Sometimes  the  people  here  don't,  either !  The 
other  day  I  thought  I  asked  a  coolie  to  carry  a  trunk 
upstairs  at  once,  whereat  his  brown  skin  turned  quite 
pale  because  I  had  recklessly  mixed  several  sets  of 
words  and  had  asked  him  to  spank  the  punkah  boy  im- 
mediately. He  hated  to  do  it.  He  begged  my  pardon 
for  refusing.  "I  am  only  a  poor  coolie,"  he  pleaded, 
"but  it  will  make  trouble,  Sahib,  much  trouble." 
Calmly  I  reviewed  my  beautiful  sentence,  and  calmly 
I  assured  him  he  was  entirely  proper  in  his  attitude. 
I  had  made  a  slip.  "Ah!"  said  he  to  me;  but  what 
he  said  to  the  punkah  boy  in  private  I  dare  not 
think. 

You  will  be  wondering  who  the  punkah  boy  is.  All 
day  long  he  sits  and  pulls  a  rope.  The  rope  pulls 
a  fan  (punkah)  in  the  ceiling.    The  fan  moves  the  air. 


58  India  Inklings 

The  air  cools  the  missionaries.  Otherwise  we  might 
sizzle !  The  "boy"  part  of  his  name  is  only  for  looks, 
as  our  host's  punkah  boy  is  a  very  old  man  who  can 
go  to  sleep  as  easily  as  Billy  II.  Whenever  the  fan 
stops  blowing,  we  know  that  the  old  fellow  is  snoozing 
again.  Bonnie  Aunt  never  lets  me  wake  him.  "He 
looks  so  awfully  tired!"  she  always  pleads. 

"And  I'm  so  awfully  warm !"  I  sigh.  So  we  debate 
his  fate :  to  sleep  or  not  to  sleep,  that  is  the  question. 

"When  I  get  my  own  little  house  in  that  little  town 
of  ours  I  intend  to  have  a  very  young  and  nimble 
punkah-puller,  whom  we  can  rouse  with  a  clear  con- 
science," she  says.    And  I  second  the  motion. 

Which  brings  me  to  the  question  of  servants.  Did 
you  ever  hear  anybody  in  America  say  that  missionaries 
are  lazy,  extravagant  creatures  with  dozens  of  serv- 
ants ?  Sit  on  anybody  who  says  it.  Sit  on  them  hard! 
And  after  they  are  properly  crushed  tell  them  the  reason 
why  missionaries  do  have  several  servants.  They  have 
to!!  They  have  to  have  a  separate  servant  to  do  all 
the  different  things  that  must  be  done :  a  cook  to  cook, 
a  sweeper  (bunghia)  to  sweep,  a  dhoti  to  wash  the 
clothes,  a  mali  to  work  in  the  garden,  a  bhisti  to  carry 
the  water  from  the  well,  a  somebody  else  to  do  every 
separate  task.    "Expensive!"  wail  the  critics? 

Sit  on  them  again,  Twinnies.  Tell  them  that  wages 
are  only  a  few  cents  a  day  so  that  the  punkah  boy  +  the 
bunghia  +  the  dhoti  +  the  mali  +  the  bhisti  +  the  cook 
+  the  everybody  else  =  Yz  less  than  one  maid-of-all- 
work  in  America!  For  instance,  your  mother  pays 
your  laundress  $3.60  a  day;  we  pay  our  washerman- 


One,  Two,  Three,  Go!  59 

dhoti  5  cents  a  day.     So  bang  goes  the  extravagance 
of  us! 

"I  still  don't  see  why  they  have  to  have  so  many!" 
grumble  the  critics.  Sit  on  them,  Tim.  Sit  on  them, 
Tom.  Look  very  wise  and  answer  pityingly:  "Don't 
you  really  and  truly  know?  It's  on  account  of  caste, 
of  course." 

"Indeed!"  gasp  the  critics,  who  will  soon  not  have 
a  leg  left  to  stand  on,  "I  don't  see  what  caste  has  to 
do  with  it." 

"Don't  you  ?"  smiles  Tom. 

"Really?"  smiles  Tim.  "Caste  is  religion  turned 
upside-down  and  wrong-side-out.  And  this  is  what 
our  uncle  tells  us  :" 

That  the  Hindu  religion  teaches  that  all  human 
beings  once  came  from  the  god  Brahma ;  the  Brahman 
caste  sprang  from  his  head,  so  of  course  they  are 
highest  of  all  peoples  and  do  no  menial  work;  then 
from  Brahma's  hands  and  feet  and  the  rest  of  his 
body  came  all  the  lesser  castes.  (Over  2,000  of 
them!)  And  each  caste  must  do  one  special  thing: 
was  your  great-grandfather  a  sweeper?  Then  the  god 
Brahma  intended  grandfather  to  be  a  sweeper  also; 
and  later,  your  father  had  no  choice,  he  too  must  be 
a  sweeper;  as  for  you,  of  course  you've  got  to  be  a 
sweeper  or  else  disgrace  the  family  and  displease  the 
gods.  What?  you  think  sweeping  is  a  horrid  dusty 
occupation  ?  No  doubt ;  but  caste  is  caste,  a  sweeper  is 
a  sweeper.  Always  has  been;  always  will  be.  The 
gods  have  spoken  it!  Who  is  man  to  change  things? 
Moreover  when  a  sweeper-man  marries  he  must  marry 


60  India  Inklings 

a  sweeper-woman.  And  the  goldsmith  families  dare 
not  eat  a  meal  with  the  lowly  sweeper  families;  and 
the  farmer  folk — though  lowly — never  go  to  dinner 
with  the  sweepers  either.  So  two  thousand  separate 
castes  divide  all  India  in  little  cliques  and  factions, 
weavers  may  not  marry  carpenters,  nor  potters  marry 
water-carriers,  gardeners  may  not  dine  with  washer- 
men, and  so  it  goes,  with  the  lordly  Brahmans  wor- 
shiped by  the  others.  Each  caste  lives  in  a  palem,  or 
on  separate  streets ;  but  in  the  Brahman  streets  no  out- 
caste  man  must  go,  since  even  the  shadow  of  such 
"untouchables"  falling  on  Brahman  food  or  Brahman 
drinking  water  would  instantly  spoil  it  for  use.  Poor 
outcastes !  There  are  about  fifty  million  of  them,  too 
wretched  to  belong  to  any  caste  at  all.  They  live  out- 
side the  village  walls  in  poverty  you  never  dreamed  of. 

So  now  you  know  why  Indian  servants  may  do 
only  one  thing  and  why  we  can't  employ  a  Jack-of-all- 
trades  or  a  maid-of -all-work.  There  are  none!  Ex- 
cept a  few  new  Christians  to  whom  Bibles  and  pills 
and  love  have  brought  a  kinder  religion. 

Aren't  you  glad  we're  here  and  learning  the  ropes 
as  fast  as  can  be  ? 

Your  busy  Uncle  Harry. 

•  •«•••• 

You  dear  "Run-About"  Tim  and  "Fun-About"  Tom, 
Billy  and  I  thought  we  would  get  out  the  India 
Ink-bottle  and  drop  you  an  inkling  or  two  this  morn- 
ing. His  part  was  cooing  and  gurgling  at  every  word 
and  trying  to  pick  them  up  before  they  dried.  This  was 
so  hard  on  the  letter  that  his  ayah  came  in  and  picked 


One,  Two,  Three,  Go!  61 

him  up!  An  ayah  is  an  Indian  nurse.  Billy's  is  a 
dear  brown  saint,  who  has  already  brought  up  two 
other  families  of  missionary  children,  so  she  has  a 
way  with  white  babies  that  is  truly  marvelous.  Billy 
reels  long  sentences  at  her  in  his  toothless  language 
and  she  knows  exactly  what  he  means,  which  is  more 
than  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Henry  Drake  know.  In  two  months 
when  we  move  to  our  precious  little  own  town  ("Town 
of  the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree,"  it's  called)  the  ayah  will 
come  with  us  to  care  for  Billy. 

To-day  I  went  to  call  on  the  loveliest  Hindu  lady. 
All  in  a  turquoise  blue  silk  saree  she  was  (gold-bor- 
dered), with  a  pink  silk  underjacket,  and  a  lavender 
veil  over  her  head — a  dream!  And  jewels  enough  to 
fill  a  store.  They  flashed  and  flamed  and  sparkled, 
until  I  thought  she  was  the  most  ravishing  lady  in 
the  world.  But  in  five  minutes  I  discovered  she  had 
never  been  outside  her  zenana  walls,  had  never  learned 
to  read  or  write,  had  been  married  when  she  was 
twelve,  and  was  bored  to  death  at  the  age  of  nineteen. 

"What  do  you  do  with  yourself?"  I  asked. 

"In  the  morning  I  sit  on  the  blue  pillows,"  she  said, 
"and  in  the  afternoon  on  the  green  pillows."  It 
sounded  very  stupid.  I  think  I  was  one  of  the  most 
exciting  things  that  had  ever  happened  to  her:  my 
hair  and  my  clothes  and  my  hat.  Yet  I  was  shocked 
to  find  that  after  I  left,  she  would  undoubtedly  have  to 
have  all  those  lovely  garments  laundered  and  take  a 
bath  herself  in  order  to  purify  herself  against  my 
"contaminating  presence."    You  see,  your  Bonnie  Aunt 


62  India  Inklings 

is  really  an  outcaste,  an  "untouchable"  in  her  haughty 
eyes! 

Speaking  of  zenanas,  I  hope  you  are  not  like  the 
poor  English  globe-trotter  who  said  in  despair: 
"Where  is  this  famous  place  every  one  talks  about 
called  Zenana  ?  I  can't  find  it  on  a  map  or  in  the  time- 
table!" Ignorant  man,  little  he  dreams  that  no  man 
ever  gets  into  a  zenana  except  a  husband  or  near  rela- 
tive, since  it  is  the  women's  part  of  a  high  caste  home — 
"curtain  women"  they  are  called  because  they  must 
hide  behind  the  purdah  (curtain).  Do  you  wonder  I 
say  "run-about"  Tim  and  "fun-about"  Tom?  For 
freedom  and  fun  are  two  of  the  things  we  hope  to 
bring  to  our  little  Town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree. 
We  count  the  days  till  we  can  go !    Lovingly, 

Bonnie  Aunt. 


VI 

GUESS   AGAIN 

ONE  day  there  was  the  greatest  possible  commo- 
tion in  the  Town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree. 
The  news  was  spread  from  one  end  to  the  other  that 
people  who  were  white-all-over  had  come  in  a  bullock 
cart  that  morning.  They  had  come  to  live!  One  of 
them  was  a  "she,"  but  you  ought  to  see  her  hair! 
Something  curiously  sad  had  happened  to  it,  so  that 
all  the  proper  blackness  had  washed  away,  leaving  it 
gold  color.  Had  anybody  ever  heard  of  gold  hair 
before?  Nobody  had.  They  could  not  believe  their 
ears,  and  hurried  to  poke  their  heads  inside  the  door- 
way of  the  house:  there  "she"  was,  just  as  the  news 
had  said — skin  all  faded,  hair  astonishingly  gold,  even 
her  eyes  impossibly  colored.  Weren't  eyes  always 
brown?  Of  course!  And  oh,  the  things  she  had  on 
for  clothes !    Most  amusing.    Poor  woman. 

"What  do  you  call  those  things  on  your  feet?" 
somebody  asked. 

"Shoes,"  explained  the  obliging  newcomer.  The 
least  you  could  say  about  her  was  that  she  was  pleas- 
ant, although  what  with  visitors  and  stray  dogs  and 
pecking  hens  meandering  around  she  was  interrupted 
a  dozen  times  a  minute 

"What's  that  thing  for?"  some  one  else  asked  as  the 

man-person  unwrapped  a  four-legged  wooden  creature. 

63 


64  India  Inklings 

"It's  a  chair,"  explained  the  pale  gold  lady,  and 
smilingly  sat  down  on  it  to  show  how  sit-able  chairs 
are!  Much  wagging  of  heads  among  the  uninvited 
guests;  they  could  not  imagine  why  any  one  should 
want  to  perch  midway  between  the  floor  and  the  roof, 
they  had  supposed  that  floors  were  plenty  good  enough 
to  sit  on,  with  legs  tucked  underneath — possibly  a  mat, 
if  your  saree  was  new.  Indeed,  there  seemed  to  be  no 
end  to  the  amusements  to  be  seen  in  this  house  of  the 
white  sahibs !  Everybody  came  to  call,  not  only  once 
that  first  day,  but  as  often  as  they  could  manage  a 
visit  in  between  times. 

"We  seem  destined  to  be  popular !"  the  gentleman  re- 
marked in  English,  mopping  his  brow. 

"Harry,  just  suppose  they  keep  on  being  so  curious ! 
How  can  I  be  pleasant  forever  when  they  muss  every- 
thing and  pick  everything  up  and  track  dust  every- 
where and  watch  every  littlest  move  I  make !" 

"Oh,  yes,  you  can!  You're  managing  beautifully. 
This  is  what  we  came  for,  anyway:  to  be  looked  at 
and  talked  over  and — fallen  in  love  with !  I  can  sym- 
pathize with  them,  for  I  felt  the  same  insane  interest 
in  you  when  I  first  saw  you,  myself !" 

Just  as  she  was  twinkling  one  of  her  delightful 
smiles  at  him,  new  heads  poked  around  the  doorway 
and  another  avalanche  of  the  same  old  questions  was 
sprung  on  her:  how  old  was  she?  was  her  hair  real? 
was  this  her  husband?  didn't  it  hurt  to  be  white-all- 
over?  did  her  husband  ever  beat  her?  No!  Well, 
wasn't  she  a  lucky  woman?  Had  she  any  children? 
Oh,  one  son !    Where  was  he  ?  why  did  she  wear  such 


Bonnie  Aunt  Unpacks  Her  Goods    65 

If  ever  any  people  had  new  Thinklings,  it  was  on  the  day  when 
Bonnie  Aunt  unpacked  her  household  goods;  for  who  in  the 
Town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree  had  an  Inkling  that  human 
beings  needed  such  peculiar  things  as — 


nfl  If 


Guess  Again  67 

a  lot  of  clothes  in  such  warm  weather?  what  were  all 
the  seeds  for  up  and  down  the  front  of  her  clothes? 
buttons  ?  what  were  they  for  ?  could  you  see  out  of  blue 
eyes  as  well  as  out  of  brown  eyes?  how  old  was  she? 
did  her  husband  have  another  wife?  no!  how  lovely! 
didn't  those  things  on  her  feet  pinch  horribly  ?  did  they 
come  off?  What — every  night?  why  only  at  night? 
why  wear  them  in  the  day-time  ?  what  were  they  good 
for  ?  could  this  little  son  of  mine  have  this  little  round 
silver  thing?  no!  the  lady  says  no,  Metaya! 

Over  and  over  and  over  the  same  astonished  ques- 
tions until  Bonnie  Aunt  became  rather  rattled  and 
found  herself  saying  that  chairs  were  meant  to  sleep 
on,  pillows  were  very  good  to  eat,  knives  and  forks 
were  used  in  writing.  If  all  the  little  girls  would 
come  to  her  school  to-morrow  she  would  soon  show 
them  what  she  meant.  Hadn't  they  known  that  girls 
could  read?  But,  of  course,  they  could.  As  well  as 
boys! 

Deeply  mystified,  the  callers  sauntered  home  discus- 
sing these  new  arrivals.  One  by  one  the  great  silver 
stars  pricked  through  the  darkness  of  the  evening  sky, 
and  the  Drakes  looked  at  each  other,  tired  but 
laughing. 

"What?"  he  said,  "are  we  alone?" 

"We  seem  to  be!"  she  answered  softly.  Then  they 
went  to  the  doorway  to  look  up  at  the  same  stars  that 
Tim  and  Tom  had  seen  so  short  a  while  before,  and 
Bonnie  Aunt  whispered : 

"Starlight,  star  bright, 
Hear  the  wish  I  wish  to-night." 


68  India  Inklings 

"Tell  me  the  wish,"  begged  Dr.  Drake. 

"Ah,  but  you  know  it,  for  you're  wishing  it,  too!" 
So  a  few  minutes  later  they  went  in  to  have  the  first 
family  prayers  that  were  ever  prayed  to  the  Saviour 
in  the  Town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree. 

And  that  was  their  first  day. 

The  second  was  so  much  like  it  that  it  was  really 
impossible  to  get  settled  at  all,  while  starting  school 
was  out  of  the  question.  But  Bonnie  Aunt  talked 
about  school  every  time  she  had  a  chance  (there  were 
dozens  and  dozens  of  chances,  too!)  until  mothers 
everywhere  went  home  to  discuss  this  startling  news 
with  the  village  fathers.  One  of  the  women  who 
talked  it  over,  said  pleadingly: 

"Oh,  master,  the  new  white  woman  says  she  can 
teach  little  girls  to  read  and  write!  Would  it  not 
please  you  to  let  Machamma  try  this  new  thing?" 

Devidas  put  back  his  head  and  laughed. 

Grandfather  put  back  his  head  and  laughed. 

The  uncles  put  back  their  heads  and  laughed. 

Then  all  of  them  looked  at  the  little  Blot  whose 
hands  were  clasped  beseechingly. 

"What?"  sneered  Devidas,  "teach  her  to  read?" 

"Girls  have  no  brains,"  said  grandfather;  "I  have 
lived  to  be  an  old  man  and  I  never  knew  a  woman 
with  brains." 

Devidas  waved  his  hand :  "Don't  trouble  me  further, 
woman!  Just  send  the  little  red  hen  to  school — 
maybe  a  hen  could  learn  reading  and  writing,  but 
Machamma?     Never!     It  is  a  joke!    The  very  gods 


Guess  Again  69 

would  hold  their  sides  and  laugh  to  see  a  girl  trying 
to  be  a  boy." 

"Oh!"  begged  Machamma,  her  great  brown  eyes 
pleading  the  words  she  could  not  get  courage  to  say. 

"Little  idiot,  be  gone !"  snapped  her  father. 

And  the  uncles  laughed  loudly. 

Machamma  cried. 

"Tut!  Tut!"  corrected  granny,  sternly,  "don't  be 
so  foolish.  Your  own  father  never  read  anything  in 
all  his  life,  your  uncles  never  read  anything,  your 
grandfather  never  read  anything;  why  should  you  put 
on  such  airs  ?  Thinking  you  can  do  what  grown  men 
can  not  do.  I  tell  you,  it's  just  one  of  those  fairy 
stories  any  stranger  from  far  away  likes  to  stuff  into 
gullible  ears." 

"White  folks  must  eat  the  fruit  of  madness  to  sug- 
gest these  wild  things,"  chuckled  the  Youngest  Aunt. 

"Keep  still,"  mumbled  the  Old  Aunt,  "time  enough 
for  you  to  gabble  when  Manikam  learns  to  read." 

Grandfather  nodded:  "I  see  no  reason  why  Mani- 
kam should  not  go  to  the  school.  The  white  Sahib 
has  a  Hindu  fellow  with  him  to  teach  that  school.  A 
brown  Hindu  is  safer  than  a  white  Sahib." 
"Very  much  safer,"  said  Devidas. 
"And  Manikam  is  a  boy.  It  would  be  well  for  him 
to  learn  to  read.  Only  the  very  high  caste  know  this 
thing  called  reading — a  Brahman  here  and  there,  or  a 
merchant  or  two." 

"Manikam  may  get  to  be  as  wise  as  a  Brahman,  just 
fancy!" 


70  India  Inklings 

"Fancy!"  echoed  the  aunts,  wagging  their  heads 
until  their  ear-rings  tinkled. 

But  in  spite  of  all  this,  Machamma  really  did  go  to 
school,  and  it  came  to  pass  in  the  simple  way  in  which 
difficulties  are  sometimes  overcome.  She  just — went. 
You  may  think  it  rather  wicked  of  her,  but  her  mother 
had  secretly  arranged  the  little  scheme,  then  ordered 
loudly :  "Out  from  under  my  feet,  tiresome  girl !  Get 
thee  outdoors,  I  am  too  busy  to  be  bothered.  Out,  I 
say!"  (All  this  for  the  benefit  of  Granny  and  the  Old 
Aunt  who  were  forever  on  hand  to  overhear  every- 
thing!) 

Pretending  to  leave  the  house  most  unwillingly, 
Machamma  dragged  herself  outside;  but  once  there, 
she  skipped  away  on  merry  feet  to  this  thing-called-a- 
school. 

Now  I  do  hope  you  are  not  picturing  some  grand 
place :  all  red  bricks  and  stone  steps  outside,  with  black- 
boards and  nice  little  desks  and  ink-wells  inside.  For 
the  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  there  was  no  school  to  be 
seen  anywhere!  But  there  was  a  banyan  tree  which 
obligingly  sent  down  shady  branches,  and  under  this 
shade  the  first  school  in  town  for  girls  was  opened. 
As  for  desks,  the  wriggly  pupils  would  not  have  known 
what  to  do  with  them,  for  they  sat  on  the  ground  feel- 
ing perfectly  contented  that  this  was  the  way  school 
ought  to  be.  As  for  blackboards,  what  could  be  han- 
dier than  the  brown  dust,  with  fingers  for  chalk? 

They  began  tracing  the  curious  hooks  and  curves 
of  Indian  A  B  C's  in  this  dust,  and  nearly  burst  with 
pride  when  they  formed  any  curve  correctly,  for  what 


Guess  Again  71 

do  you  suppose  ?  Every  girl  who  traced  perfect  letters 
was  promised  a  wonderful  little  colored  picture  which 
had  come  all  the  long,  long  way  from  "America"  where 
there  were  whole  clans  of  other  white  sahibs  with  gold 
hair.  Surely  you  have  guessed  already  that  those  won- 
derful pictures  were  nothing  but  the  old  used  picture 
post-cards  over  the  backs  of  which  Tim  and  Tom  had 
laboriously  pasted  clean  white  sheets  of  paper.  And 
on  these  sheets  of  paper  Bonnie  Aunt  had  printed  in 
her  best  Indian  lettering  the  little  Bible  sentence :  "God 
is  love."  You  might  not  think  that  such  a  tiny  verse 
would  finally  "take  a  town,"  as  bomb-shells  do  in  war- 
time. But  there  never  were  three  words  so  brimful  of 
astonishing  meaning — for  who  in  the  Town  of  the 
Twisted  Tulsi  Tree  had  ever  heard  of  a  God  of  lovef 
Those  little  cards,  therefore,  were  Bonnie  Aunt's  first 
missionary  seeds.  She  knew  that,  like  all  seeds,  they 
would  need  careful  watering  and  plenty  of  sunlight 
before  they  would  sprout ! 

But  the  strangest  thing  was  what  Machamma's  card 
accomplished.  She  had  been  so  afraid  that  she  was  not 
going  to  earn  one!  Again  and  again  she  had  had  to 
smooth  the  sandy  dust  to  start  anew,  but  finally  she  had 
an  "almost-perfect"  letter. 

"See !  See !"  she  cried,  clapping  her  hands  until 
her  glass  bracelets  tinkled  musically. 

Bonnie  Aunt  saw  the  funny  little  mistakes  bristling 
at  every  corner  of  that  pattern,  but  she  did  not  want  to 
discourage  any  of  her  wee  ambitious  scholars  and 
awarded  Machamma  the  coveted  card.  Whereupon 
that  small  maiden  became   so  excited  that  she  com- 


72  India  Inklings 

pletely  forgot  that  school  was  to  be  kept  a  secret — she 
flew  home  as  if  her  heels  were  winged:  "Look!"  she 
cried,  "just  look !  I've  learned  the  trick  called  writing! 
I've  earned  a  present.  You  said  I  couldn't,  but  I 
have !" 

Which  was  quite  the  longest  sentence  she  had  ever 
uttered  in  the  presence  of  her  father  and  those  indif- 
ferent uncles. 

For  once  in  their  lives  they  were  so  interested  in 
Machamma  that  they  forgot  her  glaring  act  of  dis- 
obedience. Six  grown  men  fingered  that  little  card  and 
looked  at  the  picture  on  it, — just  an  ordinary  little 
picture  like  a  dozen  of  the  postals  in  your  home  this 
very  minute :  but  I  think  Tim  and  Tom  feel  now  that 
this  one  card  was  worth  all  their  effort  because  of  the 
lovely  thing  that  came  of  it ! 

For  Devidas  said  magnanimously:  "Who  would 
have  believed  it?" 

"Not  I !"  sighed  each  uncle  separately. 

"You  might  as  well  let  the  Blot  try  another  day  of 
school,"  said  grandfather,  "for  maybe  those  white 
Boasters  aren't  as  boastful  as  we  supposed.  Who 
ever  saw  a  present  like  this  ?" 

"Not  I !"  sighed  each  uncle  separately. 

And  Machamma  could  hardly  wait  for  morning! 


VII 

CHURCH-BELL  BILLY  TURNS  INTO  A  BOOK-SELLER 

TT  was  Sunday  morning.  But  nobody  in  all  that 
•*■  heathen  town  knew  that  Sunday  was  any  different 
from  Monday ;  yet  here  was  Dr.  Drake  ready  to  preach 
a  sermon  and  Mrs.  Drake  anxiously  looking  down  the 
street  for  the  congregation  she  had  been  inviting  all 
week  long. 

"What  we  need  is  a  church-bell,"  she  sighed  (not 
that  there  was  a  church,  as  yet ;  but  there  was  the  ban- 
yan tree,  of  course). 

"Where  will  you  get  a  church-bell?"  asked  Dr. 
Drake. 

"Where  indeed?"  sighed  Bonnie  Aunt,  then  she  saw 
Billy-Boy!  Why  not  turn  him  into  one?  Very  se- 
cretly she  put  him  into  his  baby-carriage  and  handed 
him  the  little  toy  drum  which  Tim  and  Tom  had  sent 
all  the  way  over  the  ocean.  Then  she  trundled  the  car- 
riage down  the  narrow  streets  and  lanes. 

"Thump!  Thump!  Thumpety — thump — thump!'* 
banged  Billy,  chuckling  and  dimpling  all  over  his  dear 
little  round  face.  People  came  rushing  to  their  door- 
ways to  see  what  in  the  world  was  happening. 

"We're  on  our  way  to  church,"  Bonnie  Aunt  called 
out  presently,  "won't  you  come  along  with  us  ?" 

"We  might,"  said  the  Weaver  families,  tagging  be- 
hind. 

73 


74  India  Inklings 

"Let's  see  what  it's  all  about!"  said  the  Potters, 
dropping  their  lumps  of  moist  clay  and  falling  into 
line. 

"Mercy  on  us!  Look  at  the  parade!"  gasped  the 
Goldsmiths.  For  the  first  thing  any  one  knew  the  pro- 
cession had  grown  to  be  twenty  persons,  then  thirty, 
then  forty  .  .  .  but  Dr.  Drake  had  no  time  to  count 
them !  He  was  so  surprised  to  see  such  a  congrega- 
tion arriving  that  his  sermon  flew  out  of  his  head  com- 
pletely; he  said  afterwards  that  the  only  thing  he  could 
think  of  was  the  Bible  verse :  "And  a  little  child  shall 
lead  them."  (As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  he 
preached  a  remarkably  good  sermon  for  a  man  who 
was  a  doctor;  and  when  it  was  over,  he  gave  pills  to 
those  who  were  sick;  so  it  was  a  very  successful 
Sunday!) 

But  the  next  day  Bonnie  Aunt  noticed  a  pile  of 
Bibles  in  the  bungalow.  They  had  brought  them 
from  the  big  city  to  sell  in  the  Town  of  the  Twisted 
Tulsi  Tree,  but  try  as  they  would  nobody  would  buy 
one. 

"I  have  no  annas,"  said  one  man. 

"I  do  not  know  how  to  read,"  said  another. 

"I  am  too  busy,"  cried  a  third. 

"Why  do  you  want  to  give  us  another  god  to  wor- 
ship?" groaned  a  fourth.  "We  have  more  now  than 
we  can  count  on  the  fingers  of  two  hands." 

Excuses ;  excuses ;  excuses. 

But  Bonnie  Aunt  remembered  Billy-Boy!  Might 
he  not  be  a  born  book-seller?  She  put  him  into  his 
baby  carriage  with  little  Bibles  all  around  him;  she 


You  Wonder  When  Billy  Slept      75. 


Here  are  some  Inklings  to  prove  what  fun  a  missionary  baby 
can  have  if  he  takes  life  in  the  proper  fashion — being  a  church 
bell,  heading  parades,  selling  Bibles  and  starting  Mother's  Clubs. 
You  wonder  when  Billy  slept ! 


Church-Bell  Billy  Turns  Book-Seller    77 

trundled  him  down  the  roadway  to  a  certain  shady- 
palm  tree  on  the  edge  of  the  market-place;  then  she 
opened  one  of  the  Bibles  and  put  it  in  Billy's  hands. 
He  looked  at  it  in  the  greatest  surprise,  cooing  at  it 
and  wrinkling  up  his  nose  at  it,  so  altogether  fasci- 
nated that  a  man  passing  by  said  to  Bonnie  Aunt : 

"Mem  Sahib,  do  I  believe  my  eyes  ?  Isn't  this  white 
baby  reading?" 

"It  almost  looks  that  way,"  laughed  Bonnie  Aunt; 
and  at  that  very  moment  the  baby  turned  over  a  page ! 
Solemnly, — "like  a  pundit,"  the  man  said  afterwards. 

"Well,  I  never !"  he  gasped. 

"You  really  ought  to  own  a  copy  for  yourself," 
Bonnie  Aunt  said  craftily,  and  was  about  to  lift  one 
from  the  bottom  of  the  baby  carriage  when  Billy-Boy 
did  his  second  lovely  trick:  crowing  with  delight  he 
poked  his  Bible  up  into  the  stranger's  face,  as  if  to  say : 
"Just  read  it  for  yourself,  kind  sir;  it's  very  inter- 
esting !" 

You  may  be  sure  the  Hindu  bought  the  Book  (it 
was  not  a  Genesis-to-Revelation  Bible,  but  the  gos- 
pels only:  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  and  John),  and 
spread  the  news  through  the  bazaar  that  the  Mem 
Sahib's  infant  was  a  prodigy: 

"Too  comical !  Sits  there  reading  like  a  pundit,  a 
man  of  deep  learning.     Come  and  see  for  yourselves." 

So  a  crowd  gathered  to  see  the  Baby-Who-Could- 
Read;  and  Billy-Boy  certainly  flapped  the  pages  most 
intelligently,  although  all  he  said  was  :  "Goo !    Goo !" 

"Amazing!"  laughed  the  bystanders;  and  a  number 
of  them  bought  Bibles,  some  because  they  were  amused, 


78  India  Inklings 

some  because  they  were  curious,  and  some  because  they 
were  hungry  for  the  God  of  Love  this  Bible  contained. 

"Mem  Sahib,"  asked  a  woman,  "is  he  really  white- 
all-over?     Even  under  his  clothes?" 

"Indeed,  yes,  every  inch  of  him!"  Bonnie  Aunt  as- 
sured her ;  and  the  woman  gave  a  bracelet  in  exchange 
for  a  Bible,  hoping  it  would  turn  her  chocolate-colored 
baby  white,  so  he  could  read ! 

Everywhere  that  Billy  went,  Bibles  were  sure  to  go, 
after  that ;  and  one  day,  near  the  village  well,  a  certain 
mother  said  enviously :  "A  Bible  baby  is  quite  different 
from  our  babies!" 

"Quite  different,"  agreed  Bonnie  Aunt. 

"Fatter!"  sighed  the  Mother-Whose-Baby-Was 
Weazened-and-Thin. 

"Pleasanter !"  sighed  another  Mother-Whose-Baby- 
Was-a-Prince-of-Wails ! 

"Wiser !"  sighed  a  third  Mother-Whose-Baby-Was- 
Blind. 

"How  do  you  make  a  Bible  baby  fat  and  pleasant 
and  wise  ?"  they  asked,  setting  down  the  great  clay  jars 
they  had  brought  to  the  well  for  water. 

Bonnie  Aunt  looked  at  that  well;  and  sighed!  It 
was  not  like  our  deep  country  wells  here  in  America, 
but  more  of  a  pool.  And  while  she  was  looking  she 
saw  strange  sights :  in  the  middle  of  the  pool  lay  a 
buffalo,  wallowing  around  to  cool  off.  Nearby,  the 
town  washermen  were  soaking  the  dirt  out  of  their 
customers'  clothes ;  little  boys  were  bathing  in  the  wa- 
ter, a  woman  was  washing  vegetables ;  another  woman 
was  cleaning  her  teeth  with  a  stick  for  a  tooth-brush; 


Church-Bell  Billy  Turns  Book-Seller    79 

and  that  was  the  water  which  other  women  were  carry- 
ing home  in  clay  jars  to  drink ! 

"Bible  babies  are  brought  up  with  pure  clean  wa- 
ter," Bonnie  Aunt  cried,  "that  well  water  is  stagnant 
and  filthy.  The  dirt  in  it  would  make  a  baby  blind.  It 
would  make  a  baby  sick.  It  would  make  a  baby  un- 
pleasant." 

The  mothers  laughed. 

"Oh,  but  Mem  Sahib,  it  is  all  the  water  we  have! 
We  were  all  brought  up  on  that  water.  It  is  good  wa- 
ter.    It  is  pure  water!" 

Bonnie  Aunt  looked  at  the  buffalo  and  the  washer- 
men and  the  vegetable-cleaning-woman.    Ugh! 

"Are  you  never  sick  yourselves  ?"  she  asked. 

"My  ear!"  cried  one  woman. 

"See  the  sores  all  over  me,"  cried  another. 

"Things  I  eat  make  me  ache  inside,"  sighed  a  third. 
"It  is  evil  spirits  in  the  food,  Mem  Sahib.  That  mer- 
chant puts  an  evil  eye  on  me !" 

"It  is  the  water,  that  bad  well  water,"  insisted  Bon- 
nie Aunt.  "If  you  would  only  boil  the  water  before 
you  use  it,  you  would  be  better!  The  Lord  God  has 
sent  me  to  this  village  to  tell  you  these  things,  so  that 
you  can  have  Bible  babies,  too.  Fat  like  Billy !  Pleas- 
ant like  Billy !    Wise  like  Billy  I" 

Billy  cooed  up  into  the  gentle,  wistful  brown  faces 
all  around  his  mother.  "Wa-a-a-a!"  he  remarked 
solemnly. 

"What  is  he  saying,  Mem  Sahib?"  they  asked 
eagerly. 

Bonnie  Aunt  smiled  tenderly :  "I  think  he  is  invit- 


80  India  Inklings 

ing  you  to  come  to  our  bungalow  to-morrow  after- 
noon." 

That  evening  Bonnie  Aunt  wrote  a  letter : — 

Dear  properly-brought-up  Twinnies, 

There's  one  missionary  in  India  who  is  not  paid  a 
salary,  but  oh!  the  work  he  does!  To-day  he  helped 
me  start  a  Mothers'  Club;  to-morrow  he  will  nobly 
back  me  up  as  I  tell  the  village  mothers  that  cucum- 
bers are  really  very  very  bad  for  little  tummies,  that 
colic  is  not  caused  by  evil  spirits  and  cannot  be  chased 
away  by  beating  drums.  That's  probably  all  we  can 
do  in  one  afternoon,  for  I  will  tell  them  a  Bible  story, 
of  course;  then  as  they  go  home  I  will  give  each  of 
them  one  of  those  darling  advertisements  of  babies 
which  you  cut  out  of  magazines  for  me  and  pasted  on 
squares  of  colored  cardboard.  I  know  exactly  what 
will  happen :  "Oh,  Mem  Sahib,"  they  will  cry  admir- 
ingly, "is  this  a  Jesus  Christ  baby?" 

"Yes,"  I  will  nod,  "a  Jesus  Christ  baby." 

And  the  little  unpaid  missionary  will  wag  his  head 
cooing :  "Da-a-a-a !" 

For  of  course  you've  guessed  he's  Billy-Boy,  our 
only  church-bell,  our  star  Bible-seller,  our  "Better  Baby 
Exhibit."  We  wonder  how  we  could  ever  manage 
without  him!  For  Billy ^H those  lovely  pictures  you 
pasted  for  me  =  one  new  idea  a  day  in  the  Town  of 
the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree. 

With  oceans  of  love  (both  Atlantic  and  Pacific!) 
from 

Bonnie  Aunt. 


VIII 

MR.    PIED    PIPER,    M.D. 


tt  c 


r"[YTARY  had  a  1Ittle  lamb!'  "  quoted  Bonnie  Aunt 
at  chota  hazri  the  next  morning.     (That  is 
the  way  of  saying  "early  breakfast"  in  India.) 

"Are  you  referring  to  anybody  in  particular?"  asked 
Dr.  Drake. 

"Yes,  sir,  you,  sir !" 

"Meaning?" 

"Manikam,  of  course.  That  boy  is  your  very 
shadow,  Harry!  His  family  will  forget  what  he  looks 
like,  for  when  is  he  ever  home?  He  certainly  adores 
you." 

"Excuse!"  interrupted  the  House  Boy,  smiling, 
"but  Mem  Sahib  should  see  the  whole  tail  of  shadows 
which  tag  after  the  Doctor  Sahib  wherever  he  goes!" 

"The  Pied  Piper  of  our  hamlet!"  Bonnie  Aunt  ex- 
claimed, clapping  her  hands. 

Dr.  Drake  gave  an  embarrassed  laugh :  "It's  my  pills 
and  my  stethoscope  and  my  bandages!  Manikam  be- 
gan it  by  having  an  ugly  cut  on  his  elbow ;  because  of 
a  thimbleful  of  antiseptic  and  a  two-inch  strip  of  ad- 
hesive plaster  he  became  the  hero  of  the  town.  The 
other  boys  couldn't  develop  ailments  fast  enough. 
It  pays  to  advertise — on  Manikam!  In  America  a 
new  doctor  hangs  out  a  shingle;  I  just  hang  out  Mani- 
kam." 

81 


82  India  Inklings 

"And  where  do  you  hang  him?"  asked  Bonnie  Aunt 
anxiously. 

"Anywhere  and  nowhere,  but  especially  by  the  gate- 
posts of  my  magnificent  hospital.  He  describes  its 
glories  to  all  the  passersby,  he  describes  the  wonders 
of  the  things-called-beds  on  which  patients  sleep  half- 
way up  to  the  roof  instead  of  on  the  floor  as  they 
must  at  home.  Very  soft,  he  says !  Very  get-well- 
quick  !  Manikam  is  the  one  person  to  whom  my  hos- 
pital is  absolutely  perfect." 

"Ah!"  sighed  Bonnie  Aunt.  She  could  joke  about 
anything,  but  not  about  that  hospital.  She  had  thought 
that  when  she  married  a  doctor  he  would  have  a  hos- 
pital with  entrances  and  exits  and  waiting-rooms  and 
corridors  and  snowy  cots.  Not  to  mention  blue  cotton 
nurses  and  a  spotless  operating  room.  But  the  church 
members  of  their  denomination  back  home  in  America 
had  no  money  left  over  for  hospitals — they  were  very 
sorry,  couldn't  Dr.  Drake  find  some  little  already-built- 
house  that  would  do  for  a  year  or  two  ?  Maybe  a  hos- 
pital would  not  be  popular  right  away — in  a  strange 
town,  you  know;  among  people  who  believed  that 
beating  a  drum  and  giving  rice  to  an  idol  was  the  way 
to  cure  sickness;  etc.,  etc.  They  thought  up  several 
other  reasons,  too. 

Dr.  Drake  tried  to  excuse  his  church  in  America. 
But  Bonnie  Aunt  would  have  none  of  it ! 

"The  idea !  Write  them  a  very  positive  letter,  Harry 
Drake;  tell  them  you  can't  and  you  won't  use  that 
horrid  little  one-roomed  shanty  another  minute  when 
this  town  is  brimful  of  sick  folks.     Sicker  than  any- 


Hot  on  Trail  of  Mr.  Pied  Piper,  M.D.    83 


These  little  village  detectives  are  hot  on  the  trail  of  Mr. 
Pied  Piper,  M.D.,  for — as  Manikam  complained — he  led  them 
too  merry  a  chase  all  day  long  from  the  street  of  the  Brahmans 
to  the  street  of  the  Sweepers,  and  then  (mercy  on  us!)  even  into 
the  outcaste  palem ! 


Mr.  Pied  Piper,  M.D.  85 

body  ever  gets  in  America!  Sick  all  over!  Dirty  all 
over!  Hot  all  over!  Wilted  with  heat  and  hunger! 
Tell  them  your  patients  all  arrive  bringing  half  a  dozen 
relatives,  not  to  mention  pots  and  pans,  so  that  their 
cooking  can  be  done  separately  in  order  not  to  break 
caste  by  eating  from  anybody's  else  pot  and  pan !  Tell 
them  I'm  worn  to  ribbons  using  all  the  tact  of  Solo- 
mon and  all  the  years  of  Methuselah  in  shipping  half 
those  relatives  back  home  and  providing  separate  fires 
and  sleeping  quarters  for  the  ones  who  stick!  Tell 
them—" 

Dr.  Drake  put  down  his  tea-cup:  "You're  wasting 
time,  dearest,"  he  sighed,  "for  this  is  such  a  perfectly 
lovely  harangue  you're  firing  at  me!  But  I  know  it 
by  heart  already.  And  I  can't  write  it  home  to  Amer- 
ica. Missionaries  never  do.  They  wait.  And  they 
hope.  And  they  pray.  And  at  the  end  of  the  year  they 
send  home  statistics.  Do  you  know  what  statistics 
are?" 

"Of  course!  They're  what  nobody  ever  reads!" 
"Bonnie !  You  aren't  one  of  those  people  who  thinks 
that  statistics  are  only  neat  little  rows  of  figures  up 
and  down  a  piece  of  paper,  are  you?  Statistics,  my 
dear,  are  Inklings!  They  are  hints  which  boil  down 
into  small  print  the  most  thrilling  adventures  in  the 
world,  and  the  most  tiresome,  too.  For  statistics  are 
written  by  the  feet  of  missionaries  plodding  through 
narrow  lanes,  in  and  out  of  market-places,  up  and 
down  the  rows  of  hospital  cots,  into  school-rooms. 
Statistics  leave  out  all  the  backaches  and  heartaches 


86  India  Inklings 

but  tell  in  neat  little  rows  of  figures  what  we've  been 
doing  on  our  side  of  the  world." 

"Who's  haranguing  now,  Mr.  Pied  Piper,  M.D.?" 
Bonnie  Aunt  inquired,  with  a  very  lovely  look  in  her 
eyes.  "You're  a  real  saint!  I  think  statistics  are  a 
perfectly  odious  way  to  ask  for  what  you  deserve.  I 
think  they  ought  to  be  told  what  a  wonderful  doctor 
they're  wasting." 

"But  I'm  not  wasted!  Ask  Manikam!  Ask  Mani- 
kam's  mother!  Didn't  she  weave  me  a  wreath  of 
marigolds  and  garland  me  just  as  she  garlands  the 
idols?  Of  course  I'm  not  quite  so  popular  with  her 
now  on  account  of  the  wild  tales  he  brings  home  about 
me.  That  boy!  He  fires  so  many  questions  at  me 
that  I'm  left  breathless.  He  looks  at  my  rows  of 
labelled  bottles:  'What's  in  those  bottles,  Sahib?  Do 
they  taste  good?  Why  don't  they  taste  good?  What 
are  they  made  of?  Where  did  you  get  them?  What 
will  you  do  with  them?  How  long  will  they  last? 
How  sick  must  I  become  to  have  a  pill  out  of  the  blue 
bottle?  Out  of  the  brown  bottle?  Out  of  the  white 
bottle?  What  do  the  labels  say?  How  soon  can  I 
write  a  label  ?'  He  makes  the  room  reel  round  dizzily ! 
Yet  I  like  it  in  him.  It  shows  he  is  waking  up. 
What  do  you  suppose  he  asked  for  last  night?" 

"Can't  imagine !" 

"My  little  laboratory  scales.  They  simply  fascinate 
him,  and  after  pestering  me  for  days  with  questions  he 
finally  mastered  the  way  they  work.  So  now  he  wants 
to  take  them  home  to  weigh  the  rice  they  offer  to  the 
family  idols.    He  has  always  had  his  suspicions  about 


Mr.  Pied  Piper,  M.D.  87 

that  rice.  Even  after  a  day  of  belonging  to  the 
wooden  images  it  never  seems  to  grow  any  less,  he  tells 
me;  therefore,  are  the  idols  really  fed?  Well,  he  can 
now  prove  it  to  himself  by  weighing." 

"The  first  thing  you  know,  Pied  Piper,  you'll  be 
spending  every  extra  minute  with  those  boys.  Weren't 
you  teaching  them  football  yesterday  ?" 

Dr.  Drake  grunted:  "Teaching?     That,  my  dear, 
was  a  solo!     I  did  it  all  alone.     The  boys  seem  so 
listless  and  tired, — old  men  already,  some  of  them;  I 
suppose  it's  the  effect  of  centuries  of  hot  climate  in 
their  blood.     Anyhow,  I  longed  to  get  a  new  back- 
bone into  them,  so  I  unpacked  my  old  college  football. 
'What  is  it?    What  do  you  do  with  it?'  asked  Mani- 
kam.    'It's  a  game  boys  in  America  play  to  make  them 
strong.     See,  you  kick  it  like  this !    Fine  sport !'  " 
"Well,  what  happened?"  asked  Bonnie  Aunt. 
But  it  seemed  that  nothing  happened ! 
"How  much  do  American  boys  get  paid  for  playing 
it?"  Manikam  had  asked.     "Nothing?     But  what  a 
lot  of  trouble  to  run  around  kicking  such  a  big  ball  all 
for   nothing!     Why  not   hire   a    servant   to   kick   it 
around?     What's    it    made    of?     Leather!!     But, 
sahib,  we  don't  dare  touch  leather — it  is  unholy.     No 
caste  boy  could  do  it  without  losing  caste.     Leather 
comes  from  dead  animals.    It  is  unholy  to  touch  dead 
animals.    They  might  be  ancestors." 

So  Dr.  Drake  rendered  his  "solo,"  kicking  the  foot- 
ball all  over  the  compound,  trying  to  make  them  see 
what  fun  it  was.  .  .   . 

Enter  the  House  Boy:  "Excuse,  Sahib.     You  see 


88  India  Inklings 

everybody,  but  you  won't  see  this  old  scallawag  at  the 
door,  will  you  ?  I  keep  telling  him  and  telling  him  to 
go  away.  He's  no  account,  Sahib, — one  of  those  un- 
touchables from  the  outcaste  palem.  No  need  to  waste 
time  on  such  scum.  But  there  he  sits  on  the  door- 
sill,  unbudgeable!  You  can  observe  him  for  your- 
self." 

Dr.  Drake  looked  the  House  Boy  up  and  down: 
"I  am  never  cross,"  he  said  calmly,  "but  I  am  getting 
cross  now.  How  often  must  I  tell  you  that  I  am  most 
anxious  of  all  to  see  these  poor  people  you  despise? 
You  will  now  go  and  say  to  him  in  your  politest  man- 
ner: 'The  doctor  will  welcome  you  into  his  office. 
Kindly  step  this  way,  sir.'  " 

Bonnie  Aunt  looked  at  the  House  Boy.  And  he 
looked  at  her!  She  nodded.  Wagging  his  turban 
regretfully,  he  left  the  room. 

"He  means  all  right,"  she  laughed. 

"He  acts  all  wrong,"  grinned  the  Pied  Piper. 

The  little  clock  chimed  seven  times,  and  a  new  busy 
day  had  begun. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

It  was  toward  noon,  after  her  own  little  girl  pupils 
had  skipped  home,  that  Bonnie  Aunt  heard  the  boys 
leaving  their  school.    Then  came  a  knock. 

"Come  in,"  she  called.  And  Manikam  entered. 
He  had  proved  for  all  time  that  idols  do  not  eat  the 
food  offered  to  them :  "I  weighed  the  rice,"  he  chuck- 
led, "then  I  left  it  a  whole  day  and  weighed  it  again. 
The  finger  of  the  scales  pointed  always  at  the  same 
number.     But  my  grandfather  is  displeased.     He  says 


Mr.  Pied  Piper,  M.D.  89 

idols  eat  the  spirit  of  the  food.  He  says  if  he  ever 
catches  me  weighing  anything  again  it  will  be  the  end 
of  school  for  me.  And  if  I  turn  Christian  he  will  dis- 
own me.  I  must  never  darken  his  door  again.  My 
mother  is  very  much  provoked  also.  Do  you  think 
they  mean  it  ?" 

"Yes,  they  do.  We  must  always  go  about  these  new 
things  very  gently  and  quietly,  Manikam." 

"But  my  family  want  me  to  learn  to  read,  they  want 
me  to  learn  to  write,  but  they  do  not  want  me  to  think. 
Yet  how  can  I  help  thinking  when  things  buzz  around 
in  my  head  all  day  ?" 

"You  might  try  them  out  on  me  first,"  Bonnie  Aunt 
suggested.     "What  sort  of  things  buzz  the  worst?" 

"Everything,  Mem  Sahib.  You  have  brought  every- 
thing into  my  head  all  at  once.  Clocks,  now!  What 
makes  them  go  ?  What  makes  them  tick  ?  Why  does 
the  round  white  part  look  like  Billy's  face?  Why  is 
one  black  whisker  shorter  than  the  other  black  whis- 
ker ?  Why  does  the  long  whisker  hurry  around  faster 
than  the  short  one  ?  Why  does  the  clock  make  a  loud 
noise  only  when  the  short  whisker  sits  on  a  certain 
spot?  Where  does  that  loud  noise  come  from?  I 
should  like  to  see  the  inside  of  one,  Mem  Sahib." 

"I  dare  say!"  gasped  Bonnie  Aunt,  feeling  rather 
limp  after  explaining  clocks  as  best  she  could.  "Is  that 
all  that  buzzes  in  your  head?" 

"No,"  said  Manikam;  "I  want  to  know  about  your 
pen  that  swallows  the  inkbottle?  What  makes  it  suck 
the  ink?    How  long  will  it  stay  fed?" 

On  and  on  he  questioned  Bonnie  Aunt,  and  she  did 


90  India  Inklings 

her  best  in  answering,  knowing  the  boy  had  a  rare 
mind  and  that  it  had  a  whole  new  world  with  which 
to  grapple.  Then  he  said:  "Well,  I  must  be  going. 
This  is  the  hour  when  you  lie  down  so  the  punkah  can 
cool  you.  Some  time  I  will  come  again  and  ask  you 
about  caste.  The  Doctor  Sahib  doesn't  seem  to  know 
there  is  such  a  thing!  Any  hour  of  any  day  you  can 
see  him  going  from  the  street  of  the  sweepers  to  the 
street  of  the  Brahmans;  imagine!  My  grandfather 
says  people  who  are  white-all-over  are  out-castes.  Are 
you?" 

"What  do  you  think?"  Bonnie  Aunt  was  anxious 
to  hear  his  "buzzing"  on  this  subject. 

But  Manikam  shook  his  head.  "It  is  too  hard  for 
me,"  he  sighed.  "Now  Machamma,  my  cousin,  is 
nothing  but  a  foolish  girl,  but  she  says  there  is  a  spe- 
cial caste  of  white  people  who  sprang  from  the  Lord 
God!  She  says  you  are  probably  the  Lord  God's 
wife.  But  excuse  her,  Mem  Sahib,  she  has  no  sense, 
that  Blot!  My  uncle  will  be  making  a  marriage  for 
her  as  soon  as  he  can  get  her  a  husband." 

When  Manikam  left,  Bonnie  Aunt  said  to  Richer- 
Than-Rubies  (the  Bible  woman)  :  "I  think  it  is  high 
time  for  you  and  me  to  call  on  the  family  of  Devidas, 
Machamma's  father." 

"Oh,  Amma,"  cried  Richer-Than-Rubies,  "they 
will  not  let  you  in !  They  will  not  even  let  my  shadow 
fall  inside  their  front  door.  That  Devidas !  It's  good 
he  even  lets  little  Machamma  come  here  to  school — of 
course  there  is  advantage  in  her  being  educated.  But 
he  hates  us  bitterly.     He  beats  Machamma  for  hum- 


Mr.  Pied  Piper,  M.D.  91 

ming  our  little  Jesus-loves-me  song  to  her  mother. 
Some  day  you  will  probably  meet  this  Pitchamma  at 
the  village  well — having  no  son,  she  has  to  do  all  the 
heavy  work,  Amma.  Pitchamma  is  hungry  for  a  God 
like  ours,  but  she  cannot  believe  He  is  kind  to  women, 
so  I  whisper :  'Just  look  at  me,  Pitchamma !  See  how 
kind  God  has  been  to  me,  for  I  was  one  of  those 
widows.  Despised.  Outcaste.  Untouchable.  But 
the  Saviour  looked  down  in  love:  "I  will  lift  up  this 
Richer-Than-Rubies."  And  He  lifted  me.  Right  up! 
Way  up!'  Pitchamma  can  see  for  herself  how  the 
Saviour  can  bless  a  widow-woman,  can't  she,  Amma?" 
"Yes,"  said  Bonnie  Aunt,  and  kissed  the  dear  brown 
face.  The  Saviour  had  no  miracle  in  India  as  lovely 
as  Richer-Than-Rubies. 


IX 

HIDE   AND   GO   SEEK 

TTIDE  AND  GO  SEEK  was  a  somewhat  uncom- 
A  ■*■  fortable  "game"  which  the  Drakes  played  every 
Friday  of  their  lives.  Not  that  they  always  succeeded 
in  getting  away  from  the  Town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi 
Tree  to  play  it,  but  they  always  tried.  And  this  is  the 
way  they  generally  did  it : 

Bright  and  early  one  Friday  morning  there  was  a 
bullock  cart  waiting  outside  the  door,  with  Sathiava- 
dam  (the  boys'  teacher)  piling  it  full  of  pill-boxes  and 
lunch-baskets,  stethoscope  and  surgical  dressings,  Sun- 
day school  cards  and  charts — not  to  mention  the  baby 
organ  which  was  carefully  hoisted  on  board ! 

Indoors  the  Doctor  Sahib  had  finished  chota  hazri, 
and  suddenly  dropped  into  their  one  comfortable 
padded  chair,  as  he  sighed :  "Pretty  soft !  Now  Bonnie 
Annie  Laurie,  it's  your  turn !" 

Bonnie  Aunt  laughed  her  dear  little  laugh  and  sank 
into  the  chair  with  a  luxurious  sigh.  Then  up  she 
jumped,  and  those  two  grown  missionaries  bowed  to 
that  upholstered  chair :  "Farewell,  oh  chair !"  cried  Dr. 
Drake. 

"Aren't  we  ridiculous?"  sighed  Bonnie  Aunt. 

"Not  at  all !"  he  answered.  "I  see  in  you  the  beau- 
tiful princess  of  a  fairy  tale,  one  of  those  heroic  crea- 
tures who  slam  the  palace  gates  behind  them,  giving 

92 


"And  You  Go  So  Long" 


93 


"You  stay  so  short  and  you  go  so  long!"  sighed  the  poor  left- 
bchind  patients  on  the  days  when  the  Drakes  played  God's 
beautiful   game  of    Hide-And-Go-Seek. 


Hide  and  Go  Seek  95 

up  all  c'omfort  and  all  glory  in  order  to  help  rescue  a 
disguised  prince  from  the  dire  fate  of " 

"Sahib,"  said  Sathiavadam,  salaaming  in  the  door- 
way, "the  bullock  cart  is  in  readiness  outside,  if 
you " 

"Ready !"  cried  Bonnie  Aunt,  hoping  he  had  not  seen 
them  bowing  to  the  chair !  Sathiavadam  was  a  perfect 
dear  and  had  "a  way  with  him"  in  teaching  Hindu 
boys,  but  he  was  rather  serious.  He  thought  the  Mem 
Sahib  was  sometimes  rather  frivolous !  The  Doctor 
Sahib,  on  the  other  hand,  was  perfection.  Too  busy. 
Too  interested.  Too  much  employed  with  church  and 
school  and  hospital. 

"Sometime,  Pied  Piper,"  begged  Bonnie  Aunt,  "you 
tell  Sathiavadam  how  busy  I  am,  too!  Just  give  him 
an  inkling  of  my  jobs,  dear :  school,  and  mothers'  club, 
visiting,  classes  in  lace-making,  not  to  mention  house- 
keeping and  Billy.    Stick  up  for  me,  Pied  Piper !" 

"I  do!"  he  laughed,  "and  only  yesterday  Sathiava- 
dam commissioned  me»to  ask  you  to  get  him  a  wife, 
please.  'What  kind  of  a  wife?'  I  asked.  'Educated,' 
he  said,  'and  with  the  same  attainments  as  Arnma.'  " 

"Oh!"  sighed  Bonnie  Aunt,  contented.  "I  feel  bet- 
ter.   Come  on,  let's  be  off!" 

So  off  they  went. 

Jolt!  Jounce!  Rumble!  Rattle!  Jounce!  Rick- 
ety— rackety — rack!  The  palm  leaf  awning  of  the  bul- 
lock cart  swishing  and  swaying. 

"The  oxen  have  started,"  announced  Pied  Piper, 
M.D. 

"Really?"  asked  Bonnie  Aunt,  as  if  she  did  not  al- 


96  India  Inklings 

ready  feel  the  hairpins  slipping  out  of  her  hair.  Yes, 
actually,  one  had  come  loose  already ! 

Jolt!  Jounce!  Jiggle!  Bounce!  Jounce!  Rum- 
ble! Rickety — rackety — rick!  Minute  after  minute, 
hour  after  hour, — shaking  her,  quaking  her,  aching 
her,  until  Bonnie  Aunt  began  to  wonder  if  her  very 
brains  were  not  in  danger  of  scrambling.  But  this  was 
the  thing  one  had  to  do  in  playing  Hide  and  Go 
Seek. 

"Alm-m-most  t-there,"  said  Pied  Piper,  M.D.  pres- 
ently in  a  queer  choppy  voice,  broken  into  many  sec- 
tions by  the  rattling  and  the  jouncing. 

"I'm-m-m  a  b-bit  s-s-stiff,"  Bonnie  Aunt  answered 
choppily,  trying  to  rid  her  knees  and  elbows  of  the 
pins-and-needles  feelings. 

Just  ahead  she  saw  a  group  of  people.  Waving 
their  arms,  some  of  them.  Smiling  all  over  their 
faces,  some  of  them.  Hurrying  forward,  some  of 
them.    Limping  as  fast  as  they  could,  some  of  them. 

"Oh,  Doctor  Sahib,  I  come  at  dawn.  How  I've 
waited  for  you!  And  see,  here's  the  baby — better, 
eh?  Doesn't  cry  like  she  did.  Haven't  given  her  a 
single  cucumber  since  you  left.  But  they  laugh  at 
me  back  home.  Crazy  way  to  feed  a  baby,  they  say! 
Just  milk !" 

"Get  out  of  my  way,  you  woman!"  ordered  a  man 
hobbling  in  front  of  her,  hitting  her  aside.  "Sahib, 
look  at  my  knee.  Very  black  and  blue.  Evil  spirits 
in  it,  I  guess.  Well,  can  you  scare  them  out,  that's 
the  question?" 

"Sahib,  you  go  so  long  and  you  stay  so  short,  you 


Hide  and  Go  Seek  97 

never  get  around  to  me.  But  see,  Sahib,  I  have  a 
big  hurting  here.     See!" 

That  is  the  way  it  was  everywhere :  people  pushing 
and  jostling  to  be  the  first  patient !  But  Bonnie  Aunt 
knew  what  to  do,  and  she  started  doing  it  on  the 
baby  organ.  Music?  Ah,  they  loved  music,  and 
above  the  babel  of  voices  she  sang  a  hymn  .  .  .  half 
the  patients  straggled  away  from  the  Doctor  Sahib 
to  cluster  around  her.  Then  Richer-Than-Rubies  told 
them  a  story  of  the  Lord  God,  and,  oh,  the  startled 
questions  those  people  asked.  If  you  went  on  a  pil- 
grimage how  soon  could  you  reach  the  shrine  of  this 
God  of  Love  ?  Was  He  really  kind  to  women  ?  Mar- 
velous! Ah,  they  were  so  hungry  for  a  God  like 
that  .  .  . 

Meanwhile  Pied  Piper  M.  D.  took  his  patients  in 
turn,  hearing  their  aches  and  pains;  to  some  he  gave 
pills,  others  he  bandaged  till  they  puffed  with  pride 
at  the  curious  sight  of  themselves  criss-crossed  with 
gleaming  gauze  and  plasters.  He  filled  their  bottles 
with  medicine;  one  little  boy  who  brought  no  bottle 
and  had  not  a  single  pice  to  pay  for  one  found  a  gourd 
— he  broke  off  the  end  to  let  out  the  seeds  and  into 
this  he  stored  his  capsules  for  stomach  ache,  until 
Dr.  Drake  discovered  his  plight  and  gave  him  a  bottle 
for  nothing.  Indeed,  he  gave  everything  for  nothing, 
it  sometimes  seemed  to  Bonnie  Aunt,  for  they  had  been 
warned  to  charge  a  tiny  sum  for  treatments,  as  the 
patients  would  value  them  more.  But  what  can  you 
charge  to  a  man-with-a- family  who  earns  four  cents 
a  day?     Pied  Piper  M.  D.  said  little  of  money;  but 


98  India  Inklings 

a  great  deal  about  how  not  to  do  it!     For  instance: 

Old  Woman-Crick-in-the-Back  said  crossly :  "I  used 
the  vaseline  every  day  as  you  ordered,  but  I  ask  you 
— are  my  sores  any  better?  Just  as  red!  Just  as 
itchy!     Bah,  it's  no  good!" 

"How  did  you  use  the  vaseline?" 

"This  way,"  she  said.  And  rubbed  the  tiny  tin 
tube  over  the  angry  red  spots! 

"See  here,"  cried  Pied  Piper,  M.  D.,  "it's  the  oint- 
ment inside  that  tube  that  does  the  work.  You  forgot 
to  unscrew  the  cap,  to  squeeze  it  out  this  way.  Soft, 
isn't  it?  Soothing,  isn't  it?  Just  try  it  every  day 
until  I  come  again." 

"Well,"  cried  the  old  lady,  "I  might !  You  always 
want  your  own  way,  don't  you?  And  here  I've  been 
expecting  to  be  well  weeks  ago." 

So  it  went  until  everybody  had  been  attended  to: 
some  ignorant,  some  ungrateful,  some  hopeless,  some 
fascinated.  As  the  bullock  cart  ambled  off  to  its  next 
stop  there  would  always  be  many  voices  calling : 

"Oh,  must  you  go?  You  stay  so  short  and  you 
go  so  long!  You  are  soon  lost  to  us  in  the  dust  of 
your  cart-wheels,  Sahib.  Can't  you  come  back  to- 
night ?  Can't  you  come  back  to-morrow  ?  Come  back 
and  sit  down  in  our  village  forever,  you  and  the  gold 
lady.  We  will  build  you  a  little  house.  We  will 
garland  you  with  oleanders  like  the  gods.  Come  back 
and  stay,  Sahib!" 

Bonnie  Aunt  always  said  the  same  thing  as  she 
looked  back  through  the  dust:  "Oh,  if  there  were 
only  a  dozen  of  you  and  me!     We  aren't  enough  to 


Hide  and  Go  Seek  99 

go  around.  It's  so  pitiful  to  give  them  that  little  hour 
of  pills  and  Bible !  Can  such  hurried  snatches  of 
help  ever  'take  a  town/  Harry?" 

"God  only  knows,  dear,"  said  the  doctor.  And 
God  did  know  exactly  what  a  blessing  they  left  be- 
hind at  every  hurried  stop  each  Friday.  Sometimes  it 
would  be  under  a  grove  of  mango  trees  where  a  group 
would  be  waiting  in  one  village;  by  the  well  in  an- 
other hamlet;  at  the  cross-roads,  further  on;  and  if 
they  ever  left  an  old  route  to  reach  new  villages  they 
often  went  from  house  to  house  seeking  the  hidden 
invalids. 

There  were  adventures  on  those  trips,  for  once  in 
a  strange  village  their  bullock  cart  was  stoned. 

"We  don't  want  you,  you  people  who  are  white-all- 
over  !  You  have  come  to  bewitch  us !  You  have  the 
evil  eye.  Go  away!"  these  hostile  people  shouted,  led 
by  their  priest  who  also  flung  his  stones  and  thought 
it  very  clever  when  one  of  them  hit  the  gold-haired 
woman  on  the  head. 

Bonnie  Aunt  was  so  astonished.  "I  never  thought 
they'd  try  to  hurt  me!"  she  exclaimed. 

"The  point  is — did  they?"  the  Pied  Piper  asked, 
anxiously  examining  the  spot. 

"Gold  hair  and  a  pith  hat  are  good  protections," 
she  laughed  shakily.  For  it  is  not  pleasant  to  be  hated, 
yet  see  what  grit  she  had :  "Harry,  let's  go  back  next 
week !  Let's  go  back  and  show  them  they  can't  scare 
the  friends  of  God!" 

Then,  later,  there  was  the  time  a  thunderstorm 
brewed  itself  into  a  terrible  tempest,  and  night  fell 


100  India  Inklings 

sooner  than  they  expected.  In  utter  darkness  the  poor 
oxen  plodded  patiently  along  something  that  did  not 
seem  to  be  a  road  at  all,  for  the  first  thing  any  one 
knew  there  was  a  sickening  lurch  and  everything  slid 
backward  out  of  the  wagon  into  water. 

"Bonnie,  are  you  there?" 

"Yes,  dear,  but  I've  lost  the  baby — " 

"Billy?"  gasped  the  startled  doctor,  trying  to  swim 
nearer,  but  tangled  hopelessly  in  weeds. 

"No,  no!  The  baby  organ!  Billy's  home  in  bed, 
dear  man.  Do  you  think  this  is  a  river?  I'm  all 
gummed  up  in  ooze !  We  ought  to  reach  shore  easily ; 
where's  your  hand?" 

Sathiavadam  was  the  only  one  who  had  not  slid 
out  backward,  so  up  in  the  cart  he  managed  to  strike 
a  match,  and  what  do  you  suppose?  They  were  not 
drowning  in  some  dangerous  torrent  of  a  river,  but 
were  stranded  waist-deep  in  a  flooded  paddy  (rice) 
field! 

"Which  probably  is  the  nearest  I  shall  ever  come 
to  being  a  rice  pudding,"  Bonnie  Aunt  wrote  home  to 
Tim  and  Tom,  "but  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  our  darling 
baby  organ  caught  pneumonia  in  one  lung  from  that 
soaking  and  even  my  best  doctor  in  all  India  cannot 
cure  her  wheeze." 

Hide  and  Go  Seek?  Well,  maybe  it  was  a  game 
that  made  backs  ache;  but  how  else  could  they  spin 
their  missionary  web  north,  south,  east  and  west,  help- 
ing as  the  Great  Physician  helped  long  years  ago  when 
He  was  here  among  men — healing  the  sick  and  preach- 
ing the  gospel  to  the  poor  and  needy. 


X 

THE  TROUBLE-CALLED-CHRISTMAS 

T>  ONNIE  AUNT  thought  that  the  dearest  sight  in 
*-*  the  world  was  her  little  pupils  arriving  in  the 
morning  like  bits  of  the  rainbow  in  their  gay-colored 
sarees.  There  would  be  Lakshmamma  in  lavender  and 
Krupamma  in  yellow,  Dukhi  in  green  and  Manorama 
in  blue,  with  Machamma  in  coral  pink.  "Looping  the 
loops"  of  their  draperies  more  securely  every  few 
minutes,  and  hardly  ever  very  clean, — how  could  they 
be  when  they  ate  in  those  sarees  sitting  on  the  floor 
and  slept  in  those  same  sarees  lying  on  the  floor? 
But  Bonnie  Aunt  said  it  would  never  do  for  such  rain- 
bow glory  to  leave  her  dusty  school  dustier  than  it 
arrived,  so  the  first  thing  her  little  pupils  did  each 
morning  was  to  scamper  out  and  select  a  clean  green 
leaf  apiece  to  sit  on,  a  really  big  one,  of  course,  so 
that  it  could  be  squirmed  around  on  comfortably  all 
morning.  And  Bonnie  Aunt  talked  so  continually  of 
their  sarees  that  it  dawned  on  them  that  it  really  would 
not  be  much  trouble  to  wash  them — just  walk  into  the 
village  pool,  swirl  the  saree  around  a  few  times,  and 
walk  out  again.  The  sun  would  dry  them  out  in  no 
time  at  all!  So  day  by  day  the  Primary  Department 
grew  spick  and  span :  "spicker  and  spanner  than  any 
one  else  in  town,"  Bonnie  Aunt  wrote  proudly  to  Tim 
and  Tom. 

101 


102  India  Inklings 

You  must  not  suppose  that  the  only  equipment  kept 
on  being  dust,  with  fingers  for  pencils,  as  it  had  been 
in  those  first  days.  For  it  was  not  long  before  Krup- 
amma  was  promoted  to  a  slate !  With  a  squeaky  slate 
pencil.  The  other  pupils  nearly  died  of  envy  at  the  de- 
lightful scratchiness  of  Krupamma  writing  on  her  slate. 

"Like  tigers  crackling  through  the  dry  jungle  grasses 
she  sounds!"  sighed  Dukhi  of  the  green  saree,  envi- 
ously. 

"Like  monkeys  cracking  open  cocoanuts,"  suggested 
Lakshmamma,  sorrowfully. 

Not  a  girl  in  school  but  longed  to  squeak  a  little 
louder  than  Krupamma.  They  were  sure  that  noise 
proclaimed  the  scholar!  Such  attention  to  letters  in 
the  sand  was  never  seen  in  all  of  India,  and  one  by 
one  the  others  earned  slates  also.  And  after  slates 
came  primers! 

How  can  I  ever  tell  you  what  a  primer  means  to 
little  girls  who  never  dreamed  that  girls  could  read, 
and  whose  family  never  dreamed  that  girls  could  read? 
It  did  not  seem  at  all  foolish  to  Machamma  to  read 
those  silly  little  sentences  that  appear  in  primers. 
When  she  could  pick  out  the  words  way  over  on 
page  21  which  said:  "I  see  the  elephant,"  etc.,  she 
thought  she  certainly  had  learned  almost  all  there 
was  to  learn !  She  even  begged  to  take  the  primer 
home  with  her  to  show  her  family. 

"I  will  wrap  it  in  a  corner  of  my  saree,  Amma. 
See,  like  this  ?  And  my  saree  is  very  clean.  I  washed 
it  yesterday!" 

Could  Bonnie  Aunt  say  no?  Of  course  not!     For 


This  Inkling,  Alas!  Has  a  Blinkling    103 


This  Inkling,  alas!  has  a  blinkling  midway  in  it;  but  things 
cheer  up  considerably  toward  the  end  when  a  box  arrives  in  the 
very  nick  of  time  from  Tim  and  Tom. 


The  Trouble-Called-Christmas      105 

she  loved  Machamma  with  the  kind  of  love  that  hurt 
her  in  her  heart.  She  kept  wishing  all  the  time  that 
somebody  appreciated  this  little  Blot. 

"She's  so  darling,"  said  Bonnie  Aunt  to  Dr.  Drake. 
"Her  big  brown  eyes  are  the  lovingest  eyes  in  India, 
and  her  smile.  .  .  .  Well,  when  Machamma  smiles  I 
could  part  with  half  of  my  kingdom." 

So  Machamma  took  home  the  wonderful  primer, 
all  thumbed  and  tattered  and  torn  from  having  brought 
up  other  pupils  in  other  mission  schools ;  but  how 
was  Machamma  to  know  that  this  was  not  the  usual 
appearance  of  books.  She  liked  them  curled  at  the 
corners. 

She  handed  the  precious  volume  to  her  father  and 
said  as  modestly  as  she  could  (which  was  very  modest, 
considering  the  flutter  in  her  heart)  :  "This  is  my 
primer." 

Devidas  took  it  and  opened  it.  But,  oh,  that  open- 
ing was  a  horrible,  never-to-be-forgotten  thing;  for 
he  opened  it  upside-down!  And  how  could  a  mere 
Blot  ever  tell  her  father  that  he  had  made  a  mistake  ? 
Naturally  it  couldn't  be  done. 

"Read  here,"  ordered  Devidas,  setting  his  thumb 
in  the  middle  of  a  page,  haphazardly. 

Machamma  peered  over  his  shoulder  anxiously,  try- 
ing her  best  to  read  upside-down  print,  but  she  couldn't. 
I  can't  myself,  can  you?  So  with  gentle  politeness 
she  held  out  her  hands :  "I  beg  you  to  let  me  hold  it 
in  my  hands  as  we  do  at  school." 

Ah-ha!      Stuff   and   nonsense,"   cried  her   father. 
I   suspected  this   all  along,   you    little  fibber!     You 


u 
u 


106  India  Inklings 

made  it  all  up !  You  can't  read.  No  girl  can  read ! 
The  white  folks  simply  boasted.  I  knew  it !  I  knew  it 
from  the  beginning.  If  you  can  read  at  all,  read  while 
the  book  is  in  my  hands,  stupid  girl.  I  know  a  thing 
about  reading,  myself !  I  guess  I've  seen  people  read 
before.  Have  to  hold  it  in  your  hands,  do  you? 
Ah-ha!" 

Now  here  was  a  fix,  indeed.  I  can't  think  what  would 
have  happened  if  she  had  not  suddenly  taken  the  only 
way  out  of  it.  For  something  certainly  led  Machamma 
to  patter  softly  around  in  front  of  her  father  and 
kneel  down,  since  then,  of  course,  the  print  was  right- 
side-up  and  she  could  read  it  off  quite  glibly. 

"This  is  an  elephant,"  Machamma  spelled.  "God 
made  the  elephant.  God  made  the  elephant  to  help 
man.    God  loves  man." 

"Listen!  Listen!"  shouted  granny,  much  excited. 
"The  child  actually  reads.  Just  fancy !" 

"Just  fancy!"  echoed  the  aunts. 

"Just  fancy!"  echoed  the  uncles. 

"That's  nothing,"  Manikam  said  scornfully.  "I  can 
read,  too." 

"You  are  a  froy-child,"  said  Devidas.  "I  had  not 
supposed  this  she-child  of  mine  could  ever  do  this 
thing.     Well!     Well!     It  will  turn  her  head." 

So  Machamma  took  the  primer  back  to  school, 
hugged  under  her  saree. 

"My  father  heard  me  read  last  night,"  she  said  to 
Bonnie  Aunt. 

"Didn't  he  feel  proud  of  you,  little  Bit  of  Brown- 
ness?" 


The  Trouble-Called-Christmas      107 

"W-well,"  sighed  Machamma,  "it  was  this  way." 
And  she  told  about  the  topsy-turvy  mistake. 

"Mercy  on  us !"  cried  Bonnie  Aunt.  "Whatever  did 
you  do,  dear  heart,  for  you  wouldn't  dare  to  tell  him, 
of  course?" 

"Oh,  no,  Amma ;  but  I  whispered  to  Jesus  to  please 
help  me  quick  and  He  put  it  in  my  heart  to  go  in  front 
of  my  father,  which  made  the  printing  proper  side 
up,  you  see,"  Machamma  said  with  quaint  relief. 

Bonnie  Aunt  said  to  the  doctor  that  night :  "Oh,  but 
she  has  a  way  with  her,  that  little  Blot !  See  how  tact- 
ful she  was !  How  quick-witted !  And  don't  you  think 
it's  beauti  f ul  how  close  the  Saviour  seems  to  be  to  her  ? 
She  listens  with  all  her  ears  to  our  morning  Bible 
stories;  I'm  teaching  them  the  Beatitudes  now.  Ma- 
chamma grasps  the  meaning  so  quickly." 

If  Bonnie  Aunt  loved  Machamma  perhaps  you  can 
imagine  how  Machamma  loved  her!  There  was,  for 
instance,  the  matter  of  names.  Bonnie  Aunt  did  not 
know  enough  of  the  language  yet  to  say  everything 
correctly,  but  she  was  so  bubbling  over  with  delight 
when  her  shy  rainbows  appeared  each  morning  that 
one  day  she  manufactured  a  new  name  for  them : 
"Good  morning,  Morning  Glories!"  she  cried, — but 
half  those  little  red  lips  pouted  downward.  What  a 
way  to  talk!  (For  instead  of  sounding  flowery  in 
their  ears  it  actually  meant  something  more  like  "Day 
witches,"  which  is  not  so  complimentary,  after  all.) 

Machamma  turned  on  them  like  a  small  whirlwind. 
"0/  course,  no  one  else  talks  this  way!"  she  cried. 
"Amma  lies  awake  all  night  pulling  these  names  out 


108  India  Inklings 

of  the  love  in  her  heart.  Who  ever  loved  us  all 
over  before  but  Amma?  You  smile  up  your  faces, 
you!" 

And  they  smiled  them  up!  They  had  not  quite 
understood  before :  everything  was  so  new,  and  the 
white  memsahib  so  different  from  any  one  else.  But 
if  Machamma  said  it  was  love,  they  would  take  her 
word  for  it.  They,  too,  accepted  "Amma,"  which 
is  a  Hindu  word  for  mother. 

Then  came  the  Trouble-Called-Christmas.  It  was 
the  quickest,  most  sudden  trouble,  and  none  of  the 
Morning  Glories  could  imagine  what  it  was.  They 
took  three  guesses — but  even  by  putting  their  heads 
together  they  could  not  decide :  for  evidently  it  was 
not  the  Chills-and-Fever-Sickness  nor  the  thing  called 
Cold-in-the-Head.  Besides,  the  Doctor  Sahib  could 
cure  sicknesses,  for  didn't  everybody  in  town  know 
about  that  Man  Who  Couldn't  See  Out  of  His  Eyes? 
How  the  Doctor  Sahib  had  fastened  pieces  of  glass 
on  his  face  (spectacles)  so  that  he  saw  everything  now 
from  morning  till  night? 

"Yes,"  said  Krupamma,  "and  there  was  the  baby 
who  almost  choked  to  death,  but  didn't  the  Doctor 
Sahib  cure  him  quick?" 

Oh,  yes,  decidedly  this  Trouble-Called-Christmas 
was  different.    It  made  Amma  cry. 

They  had  all  been  in  Amma's  bungalow  having  their 
sewing  lesson  (such  fun:  needle  stick  in — needle  pull 
out!)  when  suddenly  Amma  had  looked  at  a  big  card 
on  the  wall  divided  into  little  black  squares.  "Look !" 
said  Amma,  pointing.    "It's  so  hot  I  had  lost  track  of 


The  Trouble-Called-Christmas      109 

dates,  but  to-day  is  the  twenty-first,  and  Monday 
Christmas  comes.  Christmas.  Oh-h!"  And  with 
that,  tears  suddenly  rolled  out  of  her  blue  eyes  and 
slipped  down  her  white  cheeks. 

Now  what  could  this  monster  be  whose  coming  on 
Monday  made  Amma  cry? 

"That  Christmas!"  said  Machamma,  fiercely  doub- 
ling her  fists.  "If  he  makes  you  cry,  don't  let  him 
in !  Lock  the  door  on  him,  Amma !  Hide  from  him, 
Amma !" 

Bonnie  Aunt  dried  her  eyes.  "I  can't  think  what 
made  me  do  this  silly,  silly  thing!"  she  laughed,  "but 
all  of  a  sudden  I  had  a  quick  little  vision  of  America 
at  this  very  minute,  with  evergreen  and  holly  making 
the  house  spicy,  and  sleigh  bells  jingling  through  the 
snow,  and  Tim  and  Tom  trimming  the  dear  Christmas 
Tree.  .  .  ." 

"She's  going  to  cry  all  over  again,"  nudged  Dukhi 
sadly. 

"That  Christmas!"  Machamma  groaned  savagely; 
but  Bonnie  Aunt  simply — would — not — cry.  She  bit 
her  lip  and  smiled  up  the  corners  shakily. 

"Christmas,"  she  explained,  "is  a  day,  the  dearest, 
loveliest,  j oiliest  day  in  the  whole  year.  It's  a  day  to 
love  from  the  getting-awake-time  to  the  going-to-bed- 
time, for  it's  Jesus  Christ's  birthday,  didn't  you  know  ? 
And  it  can  be  just  exactly  as  nice  in  India  as  in 
America,  indeed  it  can!  For  I'm  going  to  make  it 
so.  We'll  have  a  little  Christmas  party  for  ourselves. 
We'll  have  a  great  big  Christmas  party  for  everybody. 
I  think  .  .  .  yes,  I  think  we  will  act  out  the  story 


110  India  Inklings 

of  when  Jesus  Christ  was  born,  wouldn't  you  love  to? 
So  the  first  Christmas  ever  celebrated  in  this  town 
will  be  a  joy  to  all  of  us.  Then  how  I  do  hope  I  can 
have  a  grand  surprise  for  each  of  you.  It's  on  its 
way  from  Tim  and  Tom,  if  it  only  arrives  in  time. 
I  hadn't  realized  Christmas  was  so  near." 

"What  will  the  surprise  look  like?"  asked  Dukhi. 

"That  would  be  telling!"  smiled  Bonnie  Aunt. 

"Well,  how  will  the  surprise  come?"  asked  Ma- 
chamma. 

"That's  fair  enough,"  laughed  Bonnie  Aunt.  "It 
will  come  in  a  box.  And  the  box  will  come  in  a  bul- 
lock cart  down  the  roadway.  But  dear  me,  dear  me, 
if  the  time  is  so  short  I  must  hurry  and  write  that 
little  play  for  us  to  give!" 

"What  will  the  play  be  like,  Amma?" 

"I  haven't  decided  exactly,  but  you'll  all  be  in  it, 
and  our  oxen  will  be  in  it." 

"Dear!  Dear!"  giggled  the  Morning  Glories. 
"Suppose  the  oxen  should  make  a  noise  in  the  wrong 
places !" 

"There  won't  be  any  wrong  places,"  Bonnie  Aunt 
assured  them.  "Now  shoo  flies !  Shoo  flies !  I  must 
write  that  play,  for  even  if  the  'surprise'  doesn't  come, 
Christmas  will.  The  sewing  class  is  therefore  dis- 
missed. No,  come  back,  every  one  of  you;  what  do 
I  see  on  the  floor  to  hurt  bare  brown  feet?" 

"Needles !"  sang  the  rainbows,  regretfully.  They 
were  always  forgetting!  They  picked  them  up  and 
poked  them  in  the  little  puffed-up  cushion  where  Amma 
said  needles  belonged;  then,  their  bracelets  tinkling, 


The  Trouble-Called-Christmas      111 

they  hurried  outdoors  and  looked  longingly  down  the 
long,  straight,  dusty  roadway. 

Machamma  scampered  back.  "Amma,"  she  cried, 
"there  is  a  speck  coming  down  the  road.  We  think 
it  is  a  bullock  cart — the  bullock  cart.  With  the  sur- 
prises, you  know !" 

"Very  likely,"  said  Bonnie  Aunt,  absent-mindedly, 
for  she  was  busy  jotting  down  notes :  "Have  oxen  in 
rear;  plenty  of  straw;  manger  in  front" 

More  tinkling  of  bracelets  and  Machamma  was  back. 
"That  speck  was  only  old  Nursai  with  fagots  of  wood 
piled  up  on  his  back.  Just  imagine  thinking  him  a 
whole  bullock  cart  with  surprises!" 

"Just  imagine!"  echoed  Bonnie  Aunt,  deeply  ab- 
sorbed in  writing:  "Get  Richer-Than-Rubies  to  be 
Mary.  How  about  putting  our  little  Ever-Ready  elec- 
tric flashlight  in  the  hay  with  swaddling  clothes  around 
it  to  represent  Jesus,  the  Light  of  the  World?" 

Then  came  Krupamma.  "Amma,  the  Doctor  Sahib 
is  coming  down  the  road  in  a  bullock  cart." 

"Good !"  cried  Bonnie  Aunt,  and  left  her  note  about 
shepherds  unfinished  in  order  to  welcome  her  husband. 
For  he  always  had  things  to  tell :  sad  things — glad 
things — mad  things — about  evil  spirits,  beatings  of 
drums,  people  who  took  all  their  pills  in  one  gulp, 
people  who  were  afraid  to  take  any,  people  who  tried 
beatings  and  shakings  and  burnings  before  they  tried 
pills.  .  .   .  But  this  time  he  had  a  glad  story. 

"There's  a  big  box  from  Tim  and  Tom  in  the 
wagon,"  he  said  in  the  most  unconcerned  sort  of 
way,  as  if  boxes  always  did  reach  India  in  time.    Bon- 


112  India  Inklings 

nie  Aunt  beamed  with  delight.  The  Morning  Glories 
tinkled  their  bracelets  and  jingled  their  anklets  by 
clapping  and  dancing  delightedly. 

"That  Christmas!"  crooned  Machamma  happily; 
but  from  the  way  she  said  it  you  saw  it  was  with 
little  pats  of  affection,  quite  different  from  the  earlier 
dread  of  the  Trouble-Called-Christmas. 


XI 

WHEN    CHRISTMAS    CAME    TO    TOWN 

"VJOBODY  had  dreamed  that  Christmas  was  going 
-^^  to  be  so  wonderful.  Although,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  began  all  wrong — twice!  For  the  beautiful 
"surprise"  for  the  rainbow  pupils  nearly  melted  them 
to  tears. 

Brighter  and  earlier  than  usual  they  had  come  skip- 
ping along  under  the  palm-trees  that  Monday  morn- 
ing, and  Bonnie  Aunt  made  them  a  little  speech. 

"On  Christmas  Day,"  she  said,  "God  gave  us  the 
Lord  Jesus  for  our  very  own.  He  was  all  wrapped 
up  in  swaddling  clothes,  just  a  little  baby-thing,  yet 
nothing  was  ever  quite  the  same  again  for  the  whole 
world.  You  know  all  this,  for  I've  told  you  before, 
haven't  I,  about  the  people  whom  the  Lord  Christ 
changed?" 

"Yes,  indeed!" 

"There  was  the  man  born  blind,"  said  Krupamma. 

"That  little  dead  girl  to  whom  Jesus  said  'Get  up, 
little  girl,  get  up!'  "  said  Dukhi. 

"The  children  that  sat  on  Jesus'  lap  one  day,"  said 
Lakshmamma. 

"Yes!  So  we  have  kept  on  giving  presents  to  one 
another  ever  since,  in  gladness  for  that  First  and  Dear- 
est Christmas  Present.     That's  why  I'm  giving  each 

113 


114  India  Inklings 

of  you  a  little  gift  to-day — to  show  you  that  happi- 
ness belongs  to  all  who  love  the  Saviour." 

So  she  handed  them  their  dolls,  thinking,  of  course, 
to  hear  a  jolly  hubbub  and  see  a  merry  hopping  up 
and  down  as  china  babies  were  hugged  in  their  arms. 
But  Christmas  went  all  wrong  for  five  dreadful  silent 
minutes. 

The  monkeys  up  in  their  tree-tops  chattered  miser- 
ably about  it;  the  birds  stopped  all  their  Christmas 
carols — for  of  course  they  loved  their  Maker  and 
knew  full  well  what  Day  this  was,  yet  here  were 
maidens  blinking  on  the  verge  of  tears;  yes,  half  of 
them  were  weeping  openly  in  disappointment. 

"Dear  me!"  sighed  Bonnie  Aunt.  "What  can  it 
be  ?"  Then  suddenly  she  saw  the  dreadful  truth :  Tim 
had  of  course  sent  only  flaxen  dolls,  the  kind  American 
girls  always  choose;  but  these  wee  brown  Hindu 
mothers — oh,  tragedy !  what  did  they  want  with  faded 
dolls  when  proper  hair  was  always,  always,  always 
brown?  What  could  she  do  about  it?  All  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye?  .  .  .  for  she  must  make  Christ- 
mas merry! 

Then,  inspired,  she  picked  up  Machamma's  doll : 
"Doesn't  she  look  exactly  like  me?  Gold  hair  ?  White 
skin — see  ?" 

Such  a  flash  of  sudden  joy  and  pride  as  smiled  over 
Machamma's  face.  "Oh,  Amma,"  she  cried,  reach- 
ing out  hungry  arms  for  the  doll,  "she's  you  all  over! 
My  own  precious  Bit-of-Whiteness,  um'm,  um'm!"  and 
she  crooned  a  funny  little  made-up  lullaby  to  make 
that  gold-haired  dolly  feel  at  home.     Then  she  looked 


The  Stars  Looked  Down 


115 


Think 
of   the  thinkling 
that  must  have  gone 
on    among   the    stars    that 
Christmas   night   when   they   looked 
down   and    got   an    Inkling  of    the   lovely- 
thing  that    was    bringing   peace   and   good-will 
to  the  Town   of  the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree. 


When  Christmas  Came  to  Town    117 

at  the  rest  of  the  Primary,  still  motionless.  "Shame  on 
you  for  hurting  Amma's  feelings.  She  has  the  love- 
liest hair  in  India!  Anybody  can  have  brown  hair; 
look  at  the  Town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree — full  of 
brown  hair.  So  common  that  even  the  outcastes  have 
it.  But  God  loves  Amma  with  a  special  love,  so  He 
made  her  special  hair  and  special  cheeks.  There 
couldn't  be  a  doll  I'd  rather  have  than  one  that  looked 
like  Amma!" 

The  startled  little  mourners  picked  up  their  dolls. 
Yes,  like  Amma!  They  gave  them  a  half-hug;  then 
a  three-quarters  hug;  then  a  whole  hug.  "You  little 
Bits-of-Whiteness,  you!"  they  crooned. 

So  Christmas  started  up  merrily  again,  and  Amma 
took  her  little  pupils  into  the  hospital  where  a  row 
of  patients  lay  so  still  and  tired. 

"It  is  the  Saviour's  birthday,"  she  explained,  "so  we 
have  come  to  sing  a  Christmas  carol  for  you !" 

The  sick  eyes  turned  toward  the  little  choir;  the 
choir  hugged  their  dolls  a  little  nervously,  but  sang 
with  Amma  the  only  Christian  song  they  knew  :  "Jesus 
Loves  Me,  This  I  Know." 

It  was  not  till  tiffin  (luncheon)  that  Bonnie  Aunt 
heard  the  "double"  of  her  doll  disaster,  for  the  Pied 
Piper  had  also  had  a  sorry  start  that  morning.  He 
had,  of  course,  wanted  to  give  presents  to  those  boys 
who  shadowed  him  around  so  faithfully  and  Bonnie 
Aunt  had  discovered  in  the  famous  box  from  Tom 
and  Tim  plenty  of  little  wrist  watches.  Ten-Cent- 
Store  kind,  that  do  not  go.  "But  isn't  there  a  nice 
white  dial,  round  like  Billy's   face,  with  two  painted 


118  India  Inklings 

'whiskers' — as  Manikam  once  said?  The  boys  will 
be  tickled  to  pieces  to  have  duplicates  of  your  grand 
ticker,  Harry." 

Dr.  Drake  had  thought  they  would. 

But  now  behold,  the  boys  drew  back  when  he  be- 
gan strapping  the  first  watch  in  place  around  the 
first  brown  wrist. 

"That  strap  is  leather,  Sahib!"  they  said  in  a 
shocked  chorus.  "Caste  boys  dare  not  wear  leather 
next  their  skin!  Only  outcastes  ever  touch  it.  Are 
our  families  leather  workers?    Or  drum-beaters?" 

This  was  a  bit  of  history  repeating  itself;  but  both 
Bonnie  Aunt  and  Dr.  Drake  had  completely  forgotten 
the  football  episode. 

"Look  here,"  he  said,  "do  you  consider  me  out- 
caste?  Yet  I  wear  a  leather  wrist  watch.  I  wear  a 
leather  belt.     I  wear  a  pair  of  leather  shoes." 

The  boys  looked  decidedly  uneasy.  They  threw 
longing  glances  at  the  desirable  watches — they  had 
never  dreamed  of  owning  anything  so  marvelous — but 
how  dared  they? 

So  Christmas  came  to  a  dead  standstill. 

Nobody  knew  what  to  do. 

Dr.  Drake  was  a  little  impatient  over  the  delay, 
fjtxr  his  patients  were  waiting  in  the  hospital  for 
him;  yet  how  could  he  leave  these  devoted  friends 
present-less  ?  Then  Manikam  had  the  one  bright  idea 
sure  to  come  to  him  each  day — 

"Sahib,"  he  said,  "if  you  weighed  this  leather  in 
your  scales  it  might  tell  you  something." 

Dr.  Drake  laughed.     Those  scales!     To  Manikam 


When  Christmas  Came  to  Town    119 

they  could  settle  any  question  now.  But  quick  as  a 
flash  the  doctor  realized  that  Ten-Cent-Store  wrist 
watches  from  America  could  hardly  be  real  leather; 
why  had  he  not  thought  of  this  sooner?  Now  he 
must  pretend  to  prove  it  by  his  scales.  .  .  . 

Very  solemnly  and  silently  he  balanced  a  wrist  watch 
in  the  approved  scientific  fashion  which  Manikam 
would  expect;  conscious  all  the  time  of  two  dozen 
pairs  of  hopeful  eyes,  waiting  eagerly  to  know  their 
fate. 

"Oilcloth!"  he  announced  jubilantly.  "Not  leather 
at  all,  but  oilcloth  painted  in  humps  to  look  like  leather. 
Very  deceptive  to  the  eye,  but  nothing  but  canvas 
painted  brown.  Not  a  parent  could  object  to  anything 
so  harmless." 

Sighs  of  relief,  and  a  quick  grab  for  watches.  Then 
the  sad  fact  came  to  light  that  there  were  not  enough 
watches  to  go  around!  Sathiavadam  must  be  very 
poor  at  counting  noses,  for  only  the  day  before  Bonnie 
Aunt  had  asked  him  how  many  boys  were  now  in 
school. 

"Twenty-four,"  he  said. 

Well,  here  were  twenty-four  wrist  watches.  But 
twenty-six  scholars. 

Finally  Manikam  whispered:  "It's  this  way,  Sahib. 
Somaya  and  Sashaya  never  get  counted.  They  seem 
new,  but  they're  old.  They  began  coming  as  soon 
as  we  did,  then  they  got  spanked  for  coming.  It  was 
uncomfortable,  so  they  stayed  home  to  rest  up  from 
the  spanking.  Pretty  bad,  it  was !  Then  they  tried 
school  all  over  again,  and  were  beaten  again.    Awfully 


120  India  Inklings 

strict  caste,  their  parents.  Yet  they  can't  seem  to 
spank  school  out  of  Somaya  and  Sashaya  altogether. 
They  start  up,  then  they  die  down.  Yesterday  I 
strolled  around  to  their  street  and  said  this  was  going 
to  be  a  very  special  day  at  school,  perhaps  it  would 
be  worth  a  spanking.     So  here  they  are!" 

Presentless,  too!  Their  big  brown  eyes  watching 
this  whispered  conversation  wistfully.  Would  any- 
thing come  of  it? 

Something  did! 

For  the  Pied  Piper's  heart  was  big  and  wide  and 
friendly:  he  loathed  spankings  with  a  fierce  hatred. 

"Somaya  and  Sashaya,"  he  said,  "the  wrist  watches 
are  all  gone,  I  fear,  but  here  is  a  table  covered  with 
even  nicer  gifts.  Choose  anything  you  want.  Think 
carefully,  boys,  choose  slowly.    No  hurry,  mind  you !" 

Imagine  such  a  treat!  Sashaya  was  all  for  choos- 
ing something  big.  First  he  thought  he  would  take 
a  biggish  book,  but  he  had  hardly  been  at  school  enough 
to  master  reading,  so  what  good  would  a  book  be? 
Especially  as  he  had  instantly  decided  on  the  thing  he 
did  want,  only  dared  he  ask  for  it  ?  No,  he  dared  not ! 
It  was  so  grand  and  big  and  red.  With  a  picture  at 
one  end  of  it.  It  was  too  much  to  expect — the  Sahib 
would  undoubtedly  shake  his  head  and  the  other  boys 
would  cry:  "Fie,  for  shame,  Sashaya,  a  little  chap 
like  you  to  ask  for  that  huge  block  of  redness." 

The  Pied  Piper  saw  that  wish  popping  out  of  Sas- 
haya's  eyes:  "Little  what's-your-name ;  take  it,  boy! 
Take  it,  it's  yours  for  the  grabbing." 


When  Christmas  Came  to  Town    121 

"This?"  he  quavered,  clutching  the  thing  that  was 
bigger  than  his  head  and  shoulders. 

"But,  my  dear  fellow,"  cried  Dr.  Drake,  "that's 
just  an  old  empty  box!  You  don't  choose  that  worth- 
less thing,  do  you?" 

"It's  red,  Sahib,"  the  little  voice  said,  "and  it's  big. 
I  like  it  best!"     Sashaya's  arms  hardly  met  around  it. 

"Then  it's  yours,"  the  doctor  answered  gently.  Here 
was  a  boy  so  starved  for  things  that  empty  boxes 
seemed  desirable,  even  empty  boxes  with  labels  on  the 
end  reading:  "Champion  Extra  Heavy  Woolen  Polo 
Sweater."     (In  India!) 

"You  will  get  spanked  over  that  box,"  sneered  So- 
maya,  "it  is  too  big.  Where  will  you  hide  it?  It  is 
too  red.  Father  will  see  it  and  know  where  you  got 
it.  But  I  will  choose  something  very  little.  Some- 
thing I  can  hide.     I  will  choose  this  pencil,  Sahib." 

Sashaya  snickered :  "You  will  get  spanked  over  that 
pencil!  You  will  draw  pictures  on  the  mud  walls  of 
our  hut  with  it, — for  where  else  can  you  use  it?  Fa- 
ther will  see ;  he  will  guess  where  you  got  it ;  and  you 
will  get  spanked.  So  although  it  is  little,  it  will  be  as 
big  as  my  box.  We  will  get  spanked.  But  it  is  worth 
it." 

"Yes,  it  is  worth  it.  Christmas  is  a  very  nice  day, 
Sahib." 

i 

As  those  twenty-six  boys  went  home  with  radiant 
faces  the  Pied  Piper  said  to  Bonnie  Aunt :  "Write 
your  choicest  Thank  You  note  to  Tom  and  Tim, 
they've  helped  us  bring  Christmas  to  town!" 


122  India  Inklings 

But  when  the  silver  stars  began  to  prick  through  the 
sky  and  the  man  in  the  moon  smiled  down  on  the 
Town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree,  there  was  some- 
thing even  lovelier  to  see.  For  Bonnie  Aunt's  Christ- 
mas pageant  was  being  acted  under  the  stars.  Oh, 
such  a  crowd  of  parents  whose  children  had  received 
watches  and  dolls  that  morning,  and  of  neighbors 
who  liked  to  have  things  going  on.  Especially  with 
oxen  lowing  in  the  background,  and  the  white  Mem 
Sahib  standing  up  to  talk.    'Sh!  listen  to  her.  .  .  . 

"We  wanted  to  show  you  what  happened  the  night 
when  Jesus  was  born,"  she  began,  and  explained  how 
there  had  been  no  room  for  Mary  in  the  village  inn, 
so  it  was  in  a  stable  where  the  little  Lord  Christ  lay 
sleeping.  You  should  have  seen  the  dear  brown  In- 
dian "Mary"  hovering  over  him.  It  was  Richer- 
Than-Rubies,  in  her  cleanest,  whitest  saree;  and  in 
the  Saviour's  manger  there  was  straw,  yet  from  that 
straw  shone  forth  a  lovely  light. 

"For  our  Jesus  is  the  light  of  all  the  world,"  crooned 
Mary,  while  the  oxen  munched  their  hay  contentedly. 
Then  twelve  little  Herald  Angels  on  the  roof  (a  very 
low  roof!)  sang  once  more  that  day  their  only  carol — 
"Jesus  Loves  Me,  This  I  Know";  as  for  the  names 
of  those  angels,  they  were  Machamma,  Krupamma, 
Lakshmamma,  Dukhi,  etc.  Very  white  they  looked 
against  the  sky,  and  very  sweet  they  sounded  with 
their  little  treble  voices. 

Then  came  the  shepherds,  crooks  in  hands, — Mani- 
kam,  Metaya,  etc.,  and  peered  curiously  first  at  the 
angel    visitors,    then    at    the    shining   manger,    while 


When  Christmas  Came  to  Town    123 

"Mary"  told  them  all  over  again,  what  wonderful  news 
had  come  to  India. 

Last  of  all  came  three  kings  bearing  gifts:  old 
Nursai  with  fagots,  Purushotham  with  a  tray  of  man- 
goes, Chunder  Singh  with  incense  scenting  all  the  air. 
And  if  you  think  they  were  not  very  wise  for  Wise 
Men,  then  who  in  all  that  town  was  wiser,  since  they 
alone  had  dared  "get  down  into  this  new  religion,"  as 
you  will  see  in  the  next  chapter.  Altogether  the  Lord 
was  born  anew  in  many  other  hearts  that  night,  when 
Christmas  came  to  town. 


XII 

THE  WORM   THAT  PREACHED  A   SERMON 

TT  was  well  for  Machamma  that  there  was  that 
A  worm  and  that  sermon,  for  the  memory  of  them 
was  safely  tucked  away  in  a  corner  of  her  mind,  wait- 
ing for  the  day  when  she  would  be  greatly  comforted 
by  them. 

For  the  astonishing  worm  began  at  the  very  front 
page  of  the  Bible  and  went  straight  through  to  the  last 
page,  simply  devouring  it  as  he  went  along!  Yet  no- 
body was  pleased  at  such  literary  tendencies,  indeed 
they  created  quite  an  uproar — but  you  must  be  won- 
dering about  the  beginning  of  this  story  which  really 
goes  back  to  that  first  Sunday  when  Billy  turned  into 
a  church-bell.  Every  Sunday  after  that,  church  was 
held  under  the  banyan  tree  until  there  was  such  a  con- 
gregation that  it  seemed  necessary  to  build  a  real  meet- 
ing-house.   So  they  took  a  collection. 

Surely  the  queerest  collection  in  the  world,  for  up 
stood  Purushotham  of  the  carpenter  caste,  saying  that 
he  would  give  four  days  of  time  to  help  build  Jesus 
Christ's  house.  And  old  Nursai,  who  was  forever 
gathering  fagots,  arose  and  said  he  would  go  out  and 
chop  down  bamboo  poles  for  the  supports  of  Jesus 
Christ's  house.  As  for  Chunder  Singh,  the  farmer, 
he  said  he  would  give  some  straw  for  the  thatched 
roof  of  Jesus  Christ's  house.    So  here  were  our  Three 

124 


How  Christians  Prized  God's  House    125 


If  you  would  gain  an  Inkling  of  how  dearly  these  new  Chris- 
tians prized  God's  house,  then  just  read  of  the  precious  things 
they  were  willing  to  spare — no  wonder  they  disliked  to  have  a 
mere  worm  spoil  it  a41 ! 


Worm  That  Preached  a  Sermon    127 

Wise  Men  of  the  Christmas  pageant  bringing  real 
gifts  for  the  Saviour,  you  see! 

A  certain  Sunday  was  set  when  gifts  were  to  be 
brought,  and  a  wonderful  day  it  was.  For  the  Man 
Who  Could  Now  See  Out  of  His  Eyes  (because  of 
those  pieces  of  glass  on  his  face!)  brought  mats  he 
had  woven :  "Couldn't  you  use  these  palm-leaf  mats 
for  the  walls  ?"  he  asked  anxiously  as  he  brought  them 
up  front  to  lay  in  the  large  collection  basket. 

"Yes,  indeed !"  nodded  Dr.  Drake,  kindly. 

A  young  woman  came  forward  unclasping  a  neck- 
lace, a  weaver  brought  several  yards  of  shimmering 
hand-made  cloth,  an  old  woman  brought  some  rice, 
an  old  man  brought  some  betel-nuts;  everybody 
brought  something;  Manikam  brought  his  Christmas 
wrist  watch — it  was  the  most  precious  thing  he  had: 
not  at  all  a  ten-cent  present  in  his  eyes,  but  the  richest 
of  the  rich.  As  for  Machamma,  how  she  wondered 
what  to  bring,  for  she  really  owned  nothing  at  all. 
She  hardly  felt  the  Saviour  would  want  her  doll  .  .  . 
she  thought  and  thought  .  .  .  then  she  suddenly  saw 
the  little  red  hen.  That  hen  had  a  history,  for  once 
upon  a  time  it  had  been  an  tgg,  and  Machamma  had 
found  the  egg  in  the  roadway.  The  strangest  thing: 
not  at  all  where  eggs  ever  were.  Yet  here  this  one 
was !  So  she  laid  it  under  their  hen  to  be  hatched ; 
and  surely  from  egg-hood  through  chicken-hood  to 
hen-hood  this  little  fowl  was  hers  to  give  or  keep;  so 
she  brought  it  on  that  solemn  Sunday  morning. 

Such  a  clucking  and  squawking!  For  of  course 
hens  are  not  used  to  being  put  in  collection  baskets. 


128  India  Inklings 

But  neither  Machamma  nor  any  one  else  thought  it 
too  noisy  a  gift;  and  Bonnie  Aunt  cried — the  little 
Blot  did  look  so  sweet  and  serious  as  she  pushed  the 
hen  down  in  the  basket  and  wagged  a  warning  ringer 
at  her :  "Stay  where  you're  put !" 

Dr.  Drake  looked  at  the  hen,  at  the  nuts,  at  the 
fruit,  at  the  rice,  and  knew  only  too  well  that  some 
of  these  brown  people  might  go  hungry  several  days 
without  this  food.  He  looked  at  the  necklaces,  brace- 
lets and  cloth  and  knew  that  here  were  givers  willing 
to  look  plain  and  undecorated  for  the  Lord  Jesus' 
sake.  So  he  said:  "My  people,  this  collection  is  so 
generous,  it  means  such  sacrifice,  that  we  cannot  spend 
it  in  an  ordinary  way.  I  think  that  I  will  buy  the 
pulpit  Bible  with  it!" 

"That  is  a  good  thought,"  nodded  the  men. 

"A  fine  thought,"  nodded  the  women. 

"A  nice  thought,"  nodded  the  children. 

For  how  were  they  to  know  how  a  church  should 
look  or  what  a  church  should  have  unless  the  Doctor 
Sahib  told  them?  The  old  old  woman  liked  it  that 
her  rice  could  buy  this  special  Bible;  the  weaver  liked 
it  that  his  cloth  could  buy  this  thing  needed  in  God's 
house;  Nursai  liked  it  that  his  posts  could  help  sup- 
port the  Book  of  Books ;  the  woman  who  gave  a  neck- 
lace liked  to  know  that  when  she  missed  the  cool 
"feel"  of  it  against  her  neck  it  would  be  because  of 
the  Bible  .  .  .  they  all  liked  it.  Especially  Ma- 
chamma. 

But  you  should  have  heard  her  father !  "Where  is 
that  foolish  red  hen  ?"  he  asked  the  next  morning. 


Worm  That  Preached  a  Sermon    129 

But  nobody  knew. 

Granny  did  not  know. 

The  Old  Aunt  did  not  know. 

The  Young  Aunt  did  not  know. 

The  in-between  aunts  did  not  know. 

Pitchamma  did  not  know. 

So  the  question  narrowed  down  to  Machamma :  did 
she  know? 

"Yes !  I  thought  it  was  my  little  hen,  so  I  gave  her 
away,"  she  said,  while  all  the  stiffening  left  her  knees. 
("But  I  won't  let  them  wobble!"  she  said.  "Jesus, 
don't  let  me  be  scared!") 

"To  whom  did  you  give  that  hen?"  thundered 
Devi  das. 

"I  gave  it  to  the  Saviour,"  Machamma  whispered, 
feeling  quite  sure  that  even  her  father  could  not  get 
anything  away  from  the  Lord  Jesus.  But  he  could! 
And  he  did. 

He  went  right  away  to  the  Doctor  Sahib's  bunga- 
low. "That  crazy  Blot  of  mine  stole  a  hen  yesterday. 
It  was  not  her  hen  to  give  away  or  to  keep.  She  is  a 
handful — that  Machamma.  But  the  hen  I  must  have 
back." 

So  the  Doctor  Sahib  gave  it  to  him.  Carried  by 
two  legs  all  the  way  down  the  street,  that  hen  clucked 
loudly  in  the  most  mortified  fashion. 

"I  will  get  even  with  you  yet !"  she  squawked.  But 
to  Machamma  she  said  nothing.  Nothing!  She 
pecked  in  the  dust  of  the  courtyard  and  Machamma 
watched  her  anxiously. 


130  India  Inklings 

"You  are  Jesus  Christ's  hen,"  she  reminded  her. 
tThe  hen  nodded. 

"Just  wait !"  she  seemed  to  say.  And  several  times 
she  even  let  down  that  curious  inner  eyelid  of  hers  as 
if  she  were  winking:  "We  have  a  secret!"  So  Ma- 
chamma  was  comforted,  especially  as  Bonnie  Aunt 
said  that  the  Saviour  understood  perfectly  how  it  all 
was:  if  there  be  first  a  willing  mind  it  is  accepted 
according  to  what  a  man  hath  and  not  according  to 
what  he  hath  not.  This  was  a  quotation  from  God's 
Book,  she  said. 

Meanwhile  there  was  the  sound  of  hammering  in 
the  air  and  the  bustling  of  men  carrying  logs  and  of 
men  thatching  the  straw  roof,  until  one  day  God's 
House  was  ready.  Not  a  church  like  your  church, — 
with  long  rows  of  polished  pews  and  gold  organ 
pipes ;  for  this  congregation  would  sit  on  the  earthen 
floor  and  the  music  would  come  from  Bonnie  Aunt's 
baby  organ,  which  ever  since  being  drowned  that  day 
had  wheezed  on  certain  notes.  But  what  did  that  mat- 
ter to  the  new  Christians  in  the  Town  of  the  Twisted 
Tulsi  Tree  ?    They  liked  it  to  wheeze. 

Machamma  hoped  her  father  would  not  remember 
that  this  was  God's  Day.  Sunday  was  still  like  Mon- 
day or  Tuesday  to  him. 

All  this  time  the  pulpit  Bible  was  on  the  pulpit  table, 
waiting  for  Sunday.  Nobody  dreamed  about  the 
worm  or  knew  that  it  was  spending  the  week  traveling 
from  Genesis  to  Revelation.  But  early  Sunday  morn- 
ing a  very  old  lady  brought  a  wreath  of  jasmine  flow- 
ers to  decorate  God's  House,  and  when  in  sheer  curi- 


Worm  That  Preached  a  Sermon    131 

osity  she  raised  the  cover  of  the  big  new  Bible  she  saw 
that  startling  hole. 

"Alas!  Alas!"  she  cried,  dropping  her  jasmine  and 
hurrying  out  to  tell  the  congregation  that  "our  Bible 
is  all  spoiled.  For  who  can  ever  tell  now  exactly  what 
the  Lord  God  wrote  there  for  us  ?" 

Such  a  disturbance.  Wailings  from  the  women, 
groanings  from  the  men.  A  heathen  visitor  said  sneer- 
ingly :  "Your  God  will  send  a  punishment  upon  you  for 
letting  His  Book  get  ruined !" 

Another  heathen  said :  "Evil  spirits  did  this  thing." 

"No,"  said  old  Nursai,  who  had  just  arrived,  "there 
are  no  evil  spirits  in  God's  world.  I've  learned  that 
much." 

Yet  even  he  wondered  who  could  read  the  Bible  now 
that  a  hole  had  spoiled  the  pages.  But  when  Doctor 
Sahib  came  he  looked  at  the  hole  and  he  looked  at  the 
people.  Then  he  smiled.  Actually  smiled.  So  Ma- 
chamma  knew  that  even  a  hole  was  going  to  be  all 
right;  weren't  Christians  wonderful? 

Then  church  began.  They  sang  the  songs  they 
knew.  They  prayed  the  prayer  they  knew,  after  which 
the  Doctor  Sahib  said :  "A  hole  is  a  very  little  thing. 
And  a  worm  is  a  very  little  thing.  Did  you  suppose 
the  great  Lord  God  could  let  a  tiny  worm  destroy  His 
Book?  Did  you  not  know  that  every  word  of  it  is 
written  on  some  Christian's  heart,  stamped  on  some 
Christian's  memory?  So  that  here  and  there,  wherever 
the  worm  has  destroyed  a  word  I  can  fill  in  that  word 
from  memory.  Indeed  many  of  you  can  do  this,  also. 
For  see,  I  have  opened  at  a  certain  Psalm  where  one 


132  India  Inklings 

word  is  missing,  yet  I  think  you  know  it:  The  .  .  . 
is  my  shepherd,  I  shall  not  want  ?'  " 

"Why,  I  know  that;'  laughed  Nursai,  "that's  the 
Lord  is  my  shepherd." 

"Of  course  you  know,"  said  Dr.  Drake.  "Now 
here's  a  name  missing  from  the  prayer  I  taught  you : 
'Our  .  .  .  who    art    in    heaven,    hallowed    be    Thy 


name.'  " 


Chunder  Singh  cried :  "  'Our  Father  who  art  in 
heaven' — that's  it !" 

Which  only  goes  to  show  you  how  two  of  those  Wise 
Men  were  wiser  than  you  thought,  for  although  they 
knew  nothing  about  the  three  R's,  yet  here  was  the 
Bible,  written  in  their  hearts! 

So  Dr.  Drake  explained  that  even  worse  things 
could  never  wipe  away  the  Bible,  neither  scoldings, 
beatings,  persecutions,  fire,  swords,  nor  death.  Indeed 
that  little  worm  had  preached  a  sermon  no  one  could 
forget,  neither  the  old  old  Nursai  nor  the  young  young 
Machamma,  for  the  text  of  it  was :  "Heaven  and  earth 
shall  pass  away,  but  my  Word  shall  never  pass  away." 


XIII 

HOW   GRANDFATHER   ATE    HIS   RELATIVES 

VTOT  that  he  knew  he  was  eating  them,  of  course. 
-**^  For  Machamma's  grandfather  was  not  a  can- 
nibal by  nature,  but  as  gentle  an  old  soul  as  lived  in  the 
Town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree.  Never  had  he  been 
more  astounded  than  on  discovering  that  every  day  of 
his  life  he  had  run  the  danger  of  swallowing  ancestors 
— raw  or  cooked,  as  the  case  might  be.  At  first  he 
simply  laughed  when  Manikam  told  him. 

"This  is  one  of  those  foolish  new  Christian  no- 
tions!" he  smiled  in  his  beard,  for  he  knew  only  too 
well  that  he  had  never  done  such  an  atrocious  thing. 
When  any  one  died  who  was  exceedingly  well-pleasing 
to  the  gods,  that  person  might  go  straight  to  Nirvana 
at  death,  and  be  "nothing"  forever  and  ever.  But  every 
one  else  who  died  was  born  again  into  a  different  body 
and  sent  back  to  earth  to  try  to  please  the  gods  better 
than  in  their  former  birth.  You  never  knew  before- 
hand what  new  body  you  would  enter — if  you  had 
been  very  good,  then  you  might  be  born  into  a  higher, 
caste;  if  you  had  been  bad,  then  into  a  lower  caste; 
or  if  you  had  been  very  very  bad,  you  would  probably 
be  reborn  into  some  animal — anything  from  an  ant  to 
an  elephant ! 

This  was  a  very  unpleasant  part  of  religion,  because 

you  never  knew  what  animals  your  unfortunate  an- 

133 


134  India  Inklings 

cestors  might  be  inhabiting.  Therefore  did  a  Hindu 
ever  eat  meat,  or  swat  a  fly,  or  kill  a  snake?  "Of 
course  not,"  said  grandfather,  "we  treat  reptiles,  birds 
and  animals  as  sacred,  for  they  may  be  relatives !  Who 
knows?  So  what  do  you  mean  by  coming  home  and 
telling  me  I'm  swallowing  animals  ?" 

"A  wild  thing  to  say!"  cried  the  uncles. 

"A  thing  you  cannot  prove,"  said  his  father. 

Manikam  looked  troubled.  "But  I  can  prove  it!" 
he  admitted,  "but  for  I  have  seen  those  animals  we 
swallow.  I  have  seen  them  through  a  thing  called  a 
microscope.  A  microscope,  my  grandfather,  is  a  fat 
piece  of  glass.  It  is  so  very  fat  that  it  makes  every- 
thing underneath  it  look  fat  also.  The  first  time  I 
saw  a  pin  under  a  microscope  I  declared  that  what  I 
saw  was  a  big  nail !  But  no,  the  Doctor  Sahib  said  it 
was  a  pin ;  so  I  said  he  must  put  that  pin  in  my  hand 
and  show  me  how  the  magic  worked  which  could 
cause  a  tiny  pin  to  swell  to  the  size  of  a  big  nail,  and 
then  shrink  again.  Then  he  showed  me.  And  it  is 
no  magic  at  all.  Just  the  fatness  of  that  glass  that 
makes  things  underneath  it  look  a  dozen  times  bigger 
than  they  are.  Magnifies  them,  he  called  it,  and  asked 
me  if  I  would  like  to  see  a  small  drop  of  water  mag- 
nified. Oh!  my  grandfather,  oh!  my  father,  oh!  my 
uncles,  that  little  drop  looked  like  a  handful!"  Mani- 
kam cupped  his  palm  to  show  exactly  what  space  the 
drop  could  have  filled. 

"Do  tell !"  gasped  grandfather. 

"Mercy  on  us !"  breathed  the  others.  There  seemed 
to  be  no  end  to  the  things  these  Christians  could  do. 


About  Little  Drops  of  Water      135 


Mu  1 1 


AW*  I  Iff 


Well!     Well!     Well! 

These  new   Inklings  about  little  drops  of   water  threw  Mani- 
kam's   whole    family   into   a   terrible   state   of   mind. 


How  Grandfather  Ate  His  Relatives    137 

"That  is  not  all  of  it,  either,"  said  Manikam;  "for 
the  Doctor  Sahib  screwed  the  microscope  so  that  I 
could  see  even  more  clearly,  and  behold,  the  water  was 
alive!  It  squirmed  with  little  wriggly  animals.  A 
thousand  of  them,  grandfather!  Maybe  ten  thousand 
of  them — I  do  not  know,  for  I  am  not  good  at  figures. 
Anyhow  I  did  not  stay  to  count,  for  I  jumped  back, 
crying :  'It  is  magic !  I  am  afraid.  Let  me  get  away 
quickly.'  But  Sathiavadam  had  come  to  stand  beside 
the  Doctor  Sahib.  Sathiavadam  was  a  man  of  our 
own  caste  before  he  became  a  Christian,  and  he  would 
not  fill  my  ears  with  foolishness,  for  he  said  this  was 
not  magic, — it  was  science.  Science  is  the  law  of 
knowledge  about  the  things  God  created,  he  explained 
to  me.  Any  drop  of  water  is  full  of  living  creatures. 
If  I  didn't  believe  it,  run  out  and  get  him  some,  from 
anywhere.  Choose  it  myself.  Ordinary  water.  He 
would  soon  prove  that  it  was  not  enchanted,  but  iust 
naturally  alive." 

Grandfather  smote  his  knee  impatiently:  "Well,  did 
you  go  ?    Did  you  get  it  ?" 

"Of  course,  I  went,"  cried  Manikam,  "I  wanted  to 
know.  So  I  went  for  very  good  water.  I  went  to  the 
kitchen.  The  cook  was  making  a  cake  and  he  was 
none  too  pleased  to  have  me  bursting  in  there  until  I 
told  him  what  I  wanted  the  water  for.  Then  he  be- 
came very  angry.  'Take  all  you  want!'  he  cried, 
waving  his  hands  in  a  fine  large  way,  'take  a  cupful! 
Take  a  pitcherful!  Take  a  tubful!  I  never  heard 
such  nonsense  as  these  sahibs  get  off  about  water. 
"Boil  every  drop!"  orders  the  Mem  Sahib.    Why,  it's 


138  India  Inklings 

good  water,  Manikam.  It  comes  out  of  the  village 
well.  Full  of  animals,  indeed!  Wriggling,  indeed! 
Bah !    I  smile  in  my  beard.'  " 

"That's  the  way  to  talk !"  said  grandfather  approv- 
ingly.    "That  cook  has  sense." 

"W-well,"  wavered  Manikam,  "you  won't  think  so, 
long.  For  with  my  own  eyes  I  saw  the  Doctor  Sahib 
put  a  drop  of  this  fresh  water  on  a  little  clean  slab, 
I  saw  him  slip  the  slab  under  the  fat  glass  and  screw 
it  down.  Then  I  shut  one  eye  so  that  I  could  squint 
through  the  glass  with  the  other  eye,  for  that  is  the 
way  to  see  through  a  microscope,  and,  oh !  my  grand- 
father, it  wriggled!  Ten  thousand  living  creatures 
crept  around  on  that  slab.  They  squirmed!  'Is  all 
water  that  way?'  I  cried.  'Yes,'  said  the  Doctor 
Sahib.  'Yes,'  said  Sathiavadam,  'and  some  water  is 
even  worse.  Water  from  the  Ganges,  for  instance. 
It  is  even  more  alive  than  this.'  " 

"Then,"  said  grandfather  shuddering,  "how  dare 
we  ever  drink  another  drop  of  it?  Our  religion  for- 
bids us  to  take  life,  yet  here  we  have  been  destroying 
the  creatures  that  live  in  water!  Horrible  of  us! 
Reckless  of  us!  The  gods  must  be  incensed  at  us! 
And  I,  who  drank  all  the  Ganges  water  I  could  to 
gain  peace,  oh !  what  a  sin  I  committed,  what  ancestors 
I  may  have  swallowed !" 

"This  is  awful!"  sighed  the  uncles. 

"Dreadful!"  wailed  the  aunts. 

But  Manikam  tried  to  comfort  them.  "There  is 
nothing  to  fear.  The  Lord  God  made  the  water.  He 
made  it  for  man  to  drink.     One  day  when  God's  son 


How  Grandfather  Ate  His  Relatives    139 

was  here  among  men  He  said :  'I  am  the  Water 
of  Life,  drink  of  me.'  This  just  shows  you  that 
it  is  safe  to  drink  water.  Safe.  But  very  interest- 
ing. 

"Unsafe!  And  very  terrible!"  said  grandfather 
sternly.  "This  Christians'  God  is  nothing  to  men  of 
our  caste.  We  have  our  own  gods  to  consider,  our 
own  idols  to  please.  What  will  they  think  of  men  like 
us  who  kill  life  every  time  we  take  a  drink?  I  have 
never  known  unhappiness  such  as  I  feel  now.  We 
must  give  a  feast  to  the  idols,  my  sons.  We  must  go 
on  a  pilgrimage.  We  must  try  to  wipe  out  from  their 
memories  our  wickedness !" 

Manikam  sighed :  "It  lies  in  my  heart  to  tell  you  the 
thing  I  know.  I  know  that  a  brass  idol  is  no  more 
important  than  a  brass  bowl.  He  does  not  eat  his  rice. 
If  he  falls  over  on  his  nose,  he  stays  on  his  nose  until 
I  pick  him  up.  But  the  Lord  God  made  the  world. 
They  tell  me  this  in  school.  It  is  something  called 
geography.  The  Lord  God  made  the  dry  land,  and 
He  made  the  rivers  and  pools.  He  makes  the  rain. 
He  made  the  sun,  the  moon  and  the  stars.  He  made 
everything  for  us.  There  is  nothing  anywhere  to 
fear." 

"The  boy  is  crazy!"  sobbed  granny,  wagging  her 
head. 

"He  is  bewitched  by  those  Christians !" 

"Ask  Machamma,"  said  Manikam;  "she  is  only  a 
girl,  but  ask  her  if  she  is  afraid  of  evil  spirits  any 
more." 

Machamma  was  brought  in. 


140  India  Inklings 

"No,  I'm  not  afraid,"  she  said,  "the  Saviour  takes 
care  of  me  all  day." 

Devidas  grumbled. 

Grandfather  mumbled. 

"This  school  business  has  gone  too  far,"  said  the 
uncles.  "If  this  thing  keeps  up  we  will  lose  caste. 
What  shall  we  do  about  it  ?" 

"Keep  the  children  home  from  school,  for  one 
thing,"  ordered  grandfather. 

"Give  them  a  good  whipping,"  said  Devidas  sternly. 
"We  can  beat  all  this  nonsense  out  of  them  in  no  time 
at  all." 

"Watch  them  all  day,"  said  the  Old  Aunt,  "or  they 
will  be  running  away  to  those  Christians." 

Manikam  sighed. 

Machamma  cried. 

It  did  seem  as  if  this  was  too  much  of  a  punishment 
all  on  account  of  one  little  drop  of  water!  But  the 
whippings  hurt  just  as  much  as  if  the  water  had  been 
an  ocean.     And  they  did  no  good  to  anybody. 

For  Manikam  did  not  forget  school. 

Machamma  did  not  forget  about  the  Saviour. 

Grandfather  did  not  forget  about  those  animals  in 
water.  Almost  every  day  he  worried  about  them : — 
were  they  really  in  water?  What  were  they  called, 
Manikam?  (Manikam  had  a  great  search  in  his  brain 
before  he  could  remember  that  the  sick  animals  were 
bacteria;  he  forgot  the  names  of  the  well  ones.  It 
didn't  really  matter — they  were  mostly  sick  in  Indian 
water,  the  Doctor  Sahib  had  said.)  Grandfather  puz- 
zled his  dear  old  head — dared  he  take  a  drink?  dared 


How  Grandfather  Ate  His  Relatives    141 

he  even  eat,  when  his  rice  was  stewed  in  water  ?  dared 
he  walk  out  on  a  rainy  day — he  might  crush  an  an- 
cestor?   Life  was  hardly  worth  living.  .  .  . 

So  he  went  to  the  temple  priests.  And  the  priests 
laughed  long  and  merrily.  "Water  alive?  What  a 
joke!  It  is  just  one  of  those  things  that  the  Chris- 
tians say.  They  are  always  saying  things  about  water. 
The  Mem  Sahib  with  the  gold  hair  never  grows  tired 
of  talking  about  the  well.  But  it  is  all  nonsense. 
Perfect  nonsense." 

Grandfather  was  so  relieved  that  he  gave  a  hand- 
some present  to  the  priests.  They  looked  fatter  than 
ever  the  next  day.  So  did  grandfather,  for  he  had  a 
square  meal  to  make  up  for  all  the  slim  meals  of  the 
past  week. 

"I  was  really  frightened,"  he  said. 

"So  were  we !"  said  the  uncles. 

"And  we,"  added  the  aunts. 

But  Machamma  and  Manikam  never  said  a  word, 
aloud.     Down  in  their  hearts  they  were  praying. 


XIV 

cut!  cut!  cut!    ca-da-cut! 

[T  seemed  to  Machamma  that  her  whole  world  top- 
■*■  pled  about  her  ears.  It  just  couldn't  be  possible 
that  school  would  be  going  on  without  her ;  that  other 
little  girls  would  be  scratching  sentences  on  slates  and 
reading  out  of  primers,  getting  wisdom,  while  she  grew 
daily  stupider  and  stupider — watched  by  granny  lest 
she  run  away  to  the  forbidden  school,  watched  by  the 
Old  Aunt,  watched  by  the  Young  Aunt,  watched  even 
by  the  little  red  hen. 

"If  I  only  had  my  primer,"  sighed  Machamma. 
Then  more  wonderful  yet :  "Oh,  if  I  only  had  Blessed- 
ness !" 

She  ventured  indoors  to  see  i  f  she  could  tease  money 
out  of  them  to  buy  this  Book  of  Blessedness.  "I  could 
read  you  stories  from  it,  maybe !"  she  said. 

But  Granny  grunted  her  disapproval:  "Tut!  Tut! 
are  you  so  precious  to  your  father  that  he  will  drop 
ten  annas  in  your  hand?  It  is  a  lot  of  money.  And 
you  aren't  worth  your  rice,  as  it  is!  Always  getting 
us  into  trouble,  way  back  from  the  beginning:  mud- 
pies,  and  that  wretched  business  of  giving  away  the 
hen.  Drawing  down  the  anger  of  the  gods  on  our 
heads.  And  now  asking  for  money — go  away,  silly 
child!" 

This  was  no  new  tale  to  the  girl  who  was  only  a 

142 


Machamma's  Hen 


143 


Oh,  if  only  all  the  hens  in  India  would  be  as  cheerfully- 
obliging  as  Machamma's,  how  wonderful  it  would  be!  But  since 
there  is  only  one  such  hen  to  "buy  blessedness,"  it  leaves  you 
and  me  to  provide  Bibles  for  all  the  other  puzzled  heathen 
families. 


Cut!   Cut!   Cut!   Ca-da-cut!        145 

Blot,  so  she  went  out  in  the  courtyard  wondering  if 
she  had  anything  she  could  give  in  exchange  for 
Blessedness  .  .  .  something  that  would  not  be  missed 
instantly?  .  .  .  no,  not  a  thing.  .  .  . 

"Cut-cut-cut !  Ca-da-cut !"  clucked  the  hen,  not  only 
sympathetically,  but  obviously  strutting  around  to  at- 
tract her  attention. 

"You  hen !"  sighed  Machamma.  "Don't  you  remem- 
ber what  trouble  I  got  into  once  for  giving  you  away 
to  the  Lord  God?  Well,  I  haven't  forgotten  those 
bruises  yet.  And  you  aren't  mine  after  all,  so  you  just 
go  and  lay  your  old  tgg  if  that's  what  you're  cackling 
about!" 

With  a  grieved  but  dignified  strut  the  hen  waddled 
away;  then,  thinking  to  return  good  for  evil,  she 
turned  around  once  more  and  clucked  suggestively : 
"Cut-cut-cut !    Ca-da-cut !" 

"Go  away!  Go  away!  Can't  you  see  I'm  busy 
thinking?"  ' 

The  hen  chuckled.  She  let  down  that  funny  little 
inner  eyelid  of  hers  and  seemed  to  wink.  "Cut-cut- 
cut  !"  she  whispered. 

It  was  then  that  Machamma  caught  her  inkling! 

"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!"  she  cried  softly,  staring  at  the 
scrawny  little  hen  in  complete  surprise :  "Do  you  mean 
it?    You  aren't  joking?     Could  you?     Would  you?" 

"Cut-cut-cut!  Ca-aVcut!"  she  replied  cheerfully 
and  teetered  rapidly  over  to  her  favorite  hiding  place. 

Machamma  flew  after  her  and  eagerly  thrusting  her 
hand  in  the  straw,  pulled  out — an  egg !  Warm.  New. 
Fresh. 


146  India  Inklings 

"Oh,  thank  you,  dear,  dear  red  hen!  You  don't 
need  to  cackle  again.  I  understand.  Oh,  please  don't 
cackle — couldn't  you  lay  them  quietly  for  several  days 
without  bragging  out-loud  about  it,  so  I  can  hide 
enough  eggs  to  buy  Blessedness  ?" 

"Watch  me !"  winked  the  hen. 

One  day,  two  days,  three  days,  four  days,  five  days, 
six  days  .  .  .  and  six  eggs  were  hidden  away  in  a 
very  very  secret  place.  But  Granny  noticed  the  lack 
of  eggs,  and  the  Old  Aunt  seemed  everywhere  at  once, 
so  Machamma  dared  wait  no  longer.  Rolling  the  six 
secret  eggs  in  a  corner  of  her  saree  she  ran  to  the  mis- 
sion bungalow. 

Bonnie  Aunt  was  aghast  to  see  her :  "My  darling/' 
she  cried,  "how  could  you  do  this  forbidden  thing? 
They  will  punish  you  again  if  they  find  out." 

But  Machamma's  eyes  were  like  stars.  "Oh, 
Amma,"  she  cried  breathlessly,  "I  just  came  to  buy  the 
Book  of  Blessedness.  Could  I  have  it  quick?  God's 
little  red  hen  will  lay  more  secret  eggs  to  pay  for  it, 
she's  just  as  interested  as  I  am — only  isn't  it  too  bad 
of  her,  she  will  cackle  so  about  them?  But  could  you 
trust  me  with  Blessedness  until  she  lays  enough  to  pay 
for  it?" 

"Yes,  little  heart  of  my  heart !"  Bonnie  Aunt  cried, 
kissing  her  and  knowing  instantly  that  it  was  the  little 
copy  of  Matthew's  gospel  which  she  called  "Blessed- 
ness" because  she  had  been  learning  the  Beatitudes  in 
school  so  recently.  "Here  it  is,  dear.  Take  it  and 
run  home,  God  bless  you." 


Cut!  Cut!  Cut!  Ca-da-cut!       147 

"And  bless  the  red  hen,  too,"  Machamma  added 
anxiously. 

"Yes,  and  the  hen!  But  don't  try  to  pay  me  any 
more,  just  take  the  Bible  as  a  present,  dear.  Surely 
you've  earned  it.    Now  hurry.    Good-by !    Good-by !" 

Machamma  flew  safely  home  and  nobody  dreamed 
what  was  hidden  in  the  folds  of  her  coral-pink  saree. 
Except  possibly  the  hen.  She  clucked  in  a  contented 
fashion  as  if  to  say:  "Well,  I  said  I  would  get  even 
with  your  father  on  account  of  that  offering  business, 
and  I  have !" 

"You're  a  little  angel  in  feathers,"  Machamma 
sighed.  And  that  very  day  she  whispered  to  her 
mother:  "See,  this  is  Blessedness!  Isn't  it  lovely? 
Feel  it!  Don't  you  like  the  cover  on  it?  Don't  you 
wish  I  were  wise  enough  to  read  it  straight  off  like 
Amma  can  do  ?  But  I  know  how  the  word  *God'  looks 
in  print,  so  I  think  I  will  mark  it  with  a  pencil  every 
time  I  find  it." 

At  the  end  of  the  very  first  day  she  was  really  ex- 
cited :  "Look,  my  mother !  See  how  popular  God  is — 
He's  everywhere  in  this  Book !  I  guess  there  couldn't 
be  Blessedness  without  Him." 

And  in  the  simple  love  of  her  heart  Pitchamma 
thought  this  new  God  was  certainly  in  her  daughter, 
just  as  these  Christians  claimed  He  would  be. 

Things  went  along  so  smoothly  after  this  that  Ma- 
chamma grew  almost  careless  with  her  Bible,  reading 
it  openly.  It  seemed  a  braver  thing  than  so  much  se- 
crecy.     But   the   Old   Aunt   spied   on  her,   and    one 


148  India  Inklings 

sunny  morning  a  shadow  fell  across  the  page  and  Ma- 
chamma's  father  stood  there,  pointing: 

"Disobedient  child!  I'll  teach  you  to  forget  this 
Christian  stuff!  See  that  little  fire  burning  in  the 
courtyard?  Go  and  drop  your  book  into  it — hurry, 
slowpoke !" 

Poor  Machamma.  And  the  Old  Aunt  chuckling  in 
the  doorway !  With  very  unwilling  steps  the  little  girl 
walked  over  to  the  fire. 

"Oh,  my  father,  I  cannot  burn  Blessedness !"  she 
said. 

"Drop — that — book — in — the — fire!"  Devidas  thun- 
dered. 

Then  suddenly  Machamma  remembered  the  worm 
and  the  sermon  it  had  preached  in  church.  She  opened 
her  Bible.  "Look,  father,"  she  begged,  "see  how  many 
times  I  have  found  God  written  in  this  Book!  Yet 
even  if  you  did  burn  Blessedness  it  is  written  on  my 
heart  that  same  number  of  times.  You  cannot  burn  it 
out  of  me,  just  as  you  never  could  beat  it  out  of  me, 
either." 

Devidas  snatched  the  Bible  from  her  hand  and 
dropped  it  into  the  reddest  part  of  the  fire — golden 
tongues  of  flame  licked  hungrily  around  the  corners  of 
the  precious  leaves — they  curled  up  at  the  edges — they 
blazed  up  high — they  blackened — they  smoked — they 
died  down — 

"There !"  cried  Devidas,  "that  finishes  that !" 

But  Machamma  knew  better.  The  sermon  the  worm 
had  preached  was  comforting  her;  and  her  father  went 
away  muttering :  "This  is  a  queer  thing  I  see  with  my 


Cut!   Cut!   Cut!   Ca-da-cut!        149 

eyes,  a  girl-child  becoming  brave  like  a  boy!  I  beat 
her  and  shake  her  and  scold  her,  but  the  shine  of 
something  new  is  still  in  her  eyes.  What  are  we  com- 
ing to  in  this  town,  anyhow?" 

Oh,  it  was  no  wonder  that  the  priests  in  their  yellow 
robes  were  getting  worried!  For  on  still  evenings 
you  could  always  hear  the  sound  of  the  Christians' 
songs  floating  out  of  their  church  windows.  And 
every  night  the  Christians  prayed:  "Thy  kingdom 
come,  Thy  will  be  done,  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven." 

On  earth  seemed  to  mean  the  Town  of  the  Twisted 
Tulsi  Tree! 

Grandfather  noticed  the  difference. 

The  uncles  noticed  the  difference. 

Manikam  did  not  boss  his  mother.  Machamma  did 
not  quail  before  her  father. 

"There  is  a  certain  polish  on  the  faces  of  these  Chris- 
tians," said  grandfather. 

"That's  it !"  agreed  the  uncles.  "A  shining  in  their 
eyes." 

"A  kindness  in  their  hands,"  added  the  aunts. 

"A  happiness  in  their  steps,"  sighed  granny. 

"I  am  curious  about  a  religion  you  cannot  burn  out 
or  beat  out  or  bruise  out,"  said  Devidas. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  although  they  never 
read  a  word  of  the  Bible  itself,  yet  here  were  Ma- 
chamma and  Manikam  being  walk-about  living  Bibles 
at  home,  so  that  every  one  in  the  family  could  read 
this  verse  in  Matthew's  gospel :  "Blessed  are  they  which 
are  persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake,  for  theirs  is  the 
kingdom  of  heaven." 


150  India  Inklings 

"Seems  to  me  we  might  almost  as  well  send  these 
children  back  to  school  as  to  have  them  sitting  around 
here  with  their  heads  full  of  these  new  ideas/'  grand- 
father finally  said. 

"That's  it !  Send  them  back  to  school,"  nodded  the 
uncles. 

"School  ?"  echoed  the  aunts. 

"School!"  beamed  Machamma  and  Manikam.  Oh, 
this  was  too  good  to  be  true !  They  could  hardly  wait 
till  morning. 


XV 

MANIKAM    SHAKES   THE   TULSI   TREE 

'  I  '"HE  most  terrifyingly  wonderful  thing  had  come 
■*•  to  town  to  belong  to  the  Doctor  Sahib.  Mani- 
kam  talked  of  nothing  else,  for  imagine  a  tin  bullock 
cart  that  could  go  without  oxen!  And  go  like  the 
wind,  too.  Imagine  feeding  it  at  the  front  end  with 
water  and  oil,  then  turning  a  wheel  midway  of  the 
thing  so  that  it  went  chuf!  chuf!  chuf!  at  the  back 
end !  Had  anybody  in  the  Town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi 
Tree  ever  heard  of  a  thing  like  that?  Nobody  had. 
What  was  it  called? 

"The  Doctor  Sahib  calls  it  'Leezie.'  Oh,  how  he 
does  love  that  'Leezie'!  When  he  goes  like  the  wind 
there  is  a  tooter  in  front  which  wails  'Honk!  Honk!* 
The  heathen  boys  say  the  tooter  is  full  of  evil  spirits. 
Heathen  boys  are  so  foolish." 

You,  of  course,  have  guessed  that  this  curious  mon- 
ster was  a  Ford  car,  sent  to  Dr.  Drake  by  the  churches 
of  his  denomination  in  America. 

"Bonnie,"  he  would  say  a  dozen  times  a  week,  "your 
old  wish  has  come  true — it  is  just  as  if  there  were  four 
of  me  now !  For  in  one  Friday  morning  don't  I  whiz 
out  to  visit  those  villages  thirty  miles  away  and  whiz 
back  again  in  the  time  it  used  to  take  our  poor  old  oxen 
to  plod  to  the  nearest  village.    It's  fine,  feeling  that  I'm 

151 


152  India  Inklings 

a  medical  quartet  now!    This  will  make  the  statistics 
look  fatter.  .  .  ." 

But  nobody  ever  dreamed  that  the  statistics  could 
grow  by  leaps  and  bounds  as  they  did  on  the  wonder- 
ful day  when  a  letter  came  from  the  Village  of  the 
Silent  River.  A  wonderful  letter  which  made  the 
Drakes  feel  that  playing  Hide  and  Go  Seek  had  cer- 
tainly paid,  for  this  was  the  petition : — 

"We,  the  people  of  the  Village  of  the  Silent  River, 
are  sending  to  you  because  we  can  no  longer  serve  our 
village  idols.  After  every  harvest  we  have  sacrificed 
sheep  and  brought  our  new  rice  to  the  Goddess  of 
Abundance,  but  what  has  she  done  for  us?  Nothing. 
We  have  sacrificed  also  to  the  Cholera  Goddess  and  to 
the  Smallpox  God,  but  we  still  fall  sick  and  many  of  us 
die.  When  our  women  buy  new  sarees  they  bring  them 
to  the  temple  to  be  blessed  before  they  wear  them,  and 
sometimes  the  priests  tear  off  a  yard  or  two  for  them- 
selves. When  we  are  sick  or  in  trouble  the  priests 
laugh  in  our  faces  unless  we  bring  money;  they  spit 
on  the  ground  in  indifference  at  us.  Out  of  chips  of 
wood  the  idol-makers  carve  us  gods  to  worship  in  our 
homes,  but  they  do  not  satisfy  the  hunger  in  our  hearts. 

"But  then  came  the  Sahib  Who  Chases  Pain,  and 
the  Mem  Sahib  Who  Makes  People  Glad.  We  did 
not  mind  it  that  she  had  gold  hair  after  we  once  heard 
her  stories  of  the  Jesus  God.  They  reminded  us  of 
you.  Like  you,  He  healed  diseases.  He  has  twisted 
love  into  the  hearts  of  all  our  village.    We  are  of  one 


Tin  Lizzie  Shakes  Tulsi  Tree     153 


&■»/,   I.     I    'M,  ■         J     A.'i    •,-^*  «"'/»"  ".,,/L 


Surely  a  Tin  Lizzie  never  did  a  nobler  piece  of  work  than 
to  shake  the  Tulsi  Tree !  It  gives  you  and  me  an  Inkling  of 
the  mysterious  ways  in  which  God  works,  doesn't  it? 


Manikam  Shakes  the  Tulsi  Tree  155 

mind  in  this  matter.  We  would  get  down  into  the 
Jesus  God  religion.  Therefore  leave  us  no  longer  to 
the  devil  priests  and  to  the  wooden  idols  but  come  and 
make  us  true  men  of  Jesus. 

"(Signed)         Ramaswami, 

"The  Braider  of  Mats." 

Bonnie  Aunt  could  hardly  believe  her  ears :  "It  was 
in  that  very  village  where  they  stoned  me  two  years 
ago,"  she  said;  "oh,  Harry,  let  us  hurry  out  to  them 
at  once !  Couldn't  we  stay  a  week  ?  Couldn't  we  take 
Billy  and  his  ayah,  and  how  about  Machamma  ?" 

"Manikam,  too,"  said  Dr.  Drake;  "I  will  see  how; 
their  grandfather  feels  about  it." 

Grandfather  finally  consented.  Two  years  of  watch- 
ing Christians  had  convinced  him  they  could  do  no 
harm  to  Manikam.  As  far  as  Machamma  went,  who 
worried  about  a  mere  girl? 

It  was  a  task  in  itself  to  pack  "Leezie" — plenty  of 
bedding,  plenty  of  food,  three  grown-ups,  two  chil- 
dren and  Billy:  would  everything  go  in?  Everything 
always  goes  into  a  Ford,  so  off  they  chuf-chuffed  in 
"Leezie,"  faster  than  the  wind,  to  that  little  waiting 
Village  of  the  Silent  River. 

As  long  as  she  lives,  Machamma  will  never  forget 
the  sights  she  saw  that  day.  A  hundred  smiling  people ; 
two  hundred  little  wooden  gods  piled  up  to  build  a 
bonfire ;  four  larger  temple  idols  laid  on  top.  .  .  . 

"We  want  you  to  burn  them,  Sahib!"  they  cried. 
And  when  darkness  came,  Dr.  Drake  struck  a  match 
and  above  the  crackling  of  the  flames  and  the  snapping 


156  India  Inklings 

of  the  wood  he  lifted  up  his  voice  to  tell  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  the  light  of  the  world. 

"That  is  good !"  sighed  the  men. 

"That  is  true!"  sighed  the  women. 

"We  are  hungry  to  hear  it  again,  Sahib.  Tell  it 
again." 

It  was  a  wonderful  week,  and  Machamma  often  said 
to  the  strange  girls  in  the  village :  "I,  too,  am  a  Chris- 
tian, but  my  family  do  not  permit  it !" 

Little  she  knew  the  joy  that  lay  ahead  of  her,  or  that 
Manikam's  exploring  nature  was  to  bring  a  happy  end- 
ing to  her  career  as  a  Blot !  For  Manikam  felt  that  by 
this  time  he  knew  "Leezie"  fully  as  well  as  the  doctor, 
so  on  their  return  to  the  Town  of  the  Twisted  Tulsi 
Tree,  Manikam  begged  gently:  "Sahib,  let  me  ride 
Leezie  into  town.  I  know  all  the  little  things  you  twist 
and  all  the  little  things  you  step  on,  and  I  know  how 
to  toot  the  tooter  I" 

"Do  let  him,"  begged  Bonnie  Aunt,  "but  keep  your 
hand  on  the  wheel,  too,  Harry." 

So  that  is  how  it  happened  that  a  new  chauffeur  came 
rolling  down  "Main  Street"  that  afternoon !  All  went 
well  until  Manikam  was  about  to  pass  his  father's  house 
and  then  he  grew  self-conscious.  He  put  on  airs !  He 
tooted  the  horn!  He  glanced  aside  to  see  if  anybody 
was  watching — yes,  the  whole  family  was  there! 
Manikam  was  so  proud  that  he  did  some  little  unex- 
pected thing,  nobody  knows  just  what,  but  "Leezie" 
swerved.  "Leezie"  crashed  into  something!  There 
was  a  snapping  sound  ...  a  splintering  sound  .  .  . 
and  down  fell  the  Tulsi  Tree.    It  was  unbelievable ! 


Manikam  Shakes  the  Tulsi  Tree   157 

"Whoa  there !"  cried  Billy  from  the  back  seat,  per- 
fectly entranced  to  have  an  accident. 

Dr.  Drake  turned  off  "Leezie's"  gas,  and  he  and 
Manikam  got  out.  "Knocked  her  clean  over,  boy,"  he 
sighed,  "that's  pretty  bad!" 

Manikam  laughed :  "Sahib,  I've  hated  that  little  bush- 
tree  for  years.  I've  always  wanted  to  do  this,  and  now 
it's  done.    But  I  can't  think  what  father  will  say." 

"I  can't  think  what  grandfather  will  say!"  sighed 
Machamma,  secretly  delighted  also. 

So  surely  this  is  the  time  to  tell  you  how  the  Town 
of  the  Twisted  Tulsi  Tree  received  its  name. 

For  a  tulsi  tree,  or  shrub,  is  sacred  throughout  India 
to  the  god  Vishnu — it  is  considered  as  his  representa- 
tive. Manikam's  family  gave  great  attention  to  that 
tree  which  grew  so  near  their  door,  watering  it  faith- 
fully, plastering  the  ground  around  it  daily  with  fresh 
mud,  hanging  a  lamp  near  it  at  night  lest  it  feel  lonely 
in  the  dark !  When  the  hot  winds  blew  and  the  grass 
turned  brown  and  the  wells  dried  up,  that  tulsi  tree 
received  far  more  attention  than  the  child  Machamma, 
yes,  even  more  than  the  boy  Manikam !  For  a  shelter 
was  placed  around  it,  a  porous  jar  filled  with  water  was 
suspended  over  it  to  keep  it  always  moist  and  green. 
For  Vishnu  was  a  jealous  god — he  must  be  pleased. 

On  rainy  days,  from  childhood  up,  both  Manikam 
and  Machamma  had  heard  the  myth  as  granny  told  it, 
about  the  woman  named  Tulsi  who  had  knelt  at  many 
shrines  in  search  of  peace  and  had  been  so  very  holy 
that  when  she  came  to  die  she  asked  that  she  might 
be  the  wife  of  the  god  Vishnu.    Vishnu  already  had  a 


158  India  Inklings 

wife  named  Lakshmi,  who  was  so  enraged  at  this  re- 
quest that  she  changed  the  woman  Tulsi  into  a  tree! 
But  Vishnu  was  sorry  for  this  devout  follower,  and 
assuming  another  form,  announced  himself  as  Sala- 
grama  and  promised  to  stay  near  her.  .  .  . 

Of  all  the  tulsi  trees  in  India  these  villagers  would 
tell  you  that  theirs  had  grown  the  tallest;  there  was  a 
curious  twist  in  its  top  branches,  for  once  a  stroke  of 
lightning  hit  it — bending  it  askew,  but  it  did  not  die, 
so  the  Vishnuites  nodded  to  each  other :  "A  very  good 
sign — that!"  And  when  any  of  them  came  to  die  a 
sprig  of  the  tree  was  put  in  their  hands  and  the  Sala- 
grama  stone  was  placed  nearby. 

It  was  this  tree  that  Manikam  shook,  and  swayed, 
and  broke.  Yet  he  was  glad.  But  all  afternoon  the 
excitement  in  town  was  terrible.  Wails  of  mourning 
could  be  heard  as  the  people  prepared  it  with  great 
ceremony  for  its  funeral  rites. 

And  that  night  grandfather  fell  ill. 

"He  will  die,"  said  the  uncles.  "This  is  the  doing  of 
that  boy  Manikam.  This  is  what  comes  of  having  a 
Christian  in  the  family.    Let  us  disown  him.  ..." 

"He  will  die,"  wailed  the  aunts — all  except  Pit- 
chamma.  She  whispered  in  Machamma's  ear,  and 
Machamma  hurried  down  the  dark  street. 

When  she  returned  there  were  men  of  the  caste  who 
beat  tom-toms  drumming  in  grandfather's  ears  to  dis- 
lodge the  evil  spirits. 

"You  may  do  what  you  please  with  me,  father,"  she 
cried,  "but  it  is  neither  evil  spirits  nor  lack  of  a  tulsi 
tree  that  is  making  grandfather  ill;  it  is  a  real  sickness. 


Manikam  Shakes  the  Tulsi  Tree   159 

A  sickness  to  be  cured  with  pills.  Could  you  not  let 
the  Doctor  Sahib  give  him  some?  Think  of  the  man 
named  Sunderaya  who  lay  in  a  stupor  three  weeks,  as 
good  as  dead,  but  white  pills  cured  him !" 

"Never !"  said  Devidas. 

"Never !"  said  the  uncles. 

"Never !"  said  the  aunts. 

And  while  they  were  sternest  and  surest,  in  walked 
Dr.  Drake!  In  the  middle  of  the  night;  with  "Lee- 
zie"  chuf -chuffing  outside. 

"Stop  those  tom-toms !"  he  shouted. 

The  low  caste  drummers  stopped  in  surprise. 

"Help  me  carry  him  out  to  my  car,"  he  next  ordered. 

"But — "  started  the  uncles. 

"You  are  deliberately  killing  your  father  by  each  mo- 
ment's delay.  If  he  dies  it  will  all  be  your  fault.  Come, 
take  his  feet,  you  two.    Take  his  shoulders,  you  others." 

And  the  first  thing  any  one  knew  the  old  gentleman 
was  a  patient  in  that  tiny  hospital,  and  five  visitors  each 
day  stalked  in  and  stalked  out.  But  their  eyes  were 
open !  And  their  ears  were  open !  Inch  by  inch  their 
hearts  were  open,  too! 

Bonnie  Aunt  used  to  meet  them  one  at  a  time  every 
day:  "He  is  much  better,  isn't  he?" 

"So  it  seems,"  said  Devidas. 

"Apparently!"  the  others  begrudged  admitting  it; 
but  what  could  you  say,  with  grandfather  crunching 
his  pills  and  acting  quite  normal? 

Bonnie  Aunt  tried  a  present  for  each  of  them. 
Bibles!  They  took  them,  salaaming.  "It  is  medicine 
for  the  heart,"  she  said.     "Machamma  will  read  it  to 


160  India  Inklings 

you,  Devidas.  Almost  as  good  as  a  son,  isn't  she? 
Especially  as  it  was  her  swift  feet  that  brought  the  doc- 
tor to  you  in  time." 

"My  heart  is  drawn  out  toward  these  Christians,*' 
said  Devidas  one  day. 

"Ours  also,"  said  the  uncles. 

For  seeing  is  believing!  Then  came  the  day  when 
grandfather  was  as  good  as  new.  "Wreathe  me  a  gar- 
land of  oleanders,"  he  ordered. 

Pitchamma  wreathed  them  as  fast  as  she  could,  and 
the  next  time  Dr.  Drake  strolled  into  the  hospital 
grandfather  garlanded  him!  lie  also  made  a  little 
speech : 

"Sahib,"  he  said,  "I  must  get  down  into  this  new 
religion  quickly,  for  I  ana  now  an  old  man  and  very 
very  hungry  for  peace*  I  thought  I  had  peace  corked 
up  in  my  vase  of  Ganges  water  till  Machamma  spilled 
it.  Anyhow,  Manikam  tells  me  that  water  is  vile — 
full  of  living  creatures.  But  this  Jesus,  how  He  does 
draw  out  my  heart  now  that  I  know  Him  better.* 

"Mine,  too,"  said  Devidas. 

"And  mine,"  the  uncles  echoed. 

So  that  is  how  a  wave  of  joy  started  to  sweep 
through  the  whole  town;  but  the  Christians  in  Amer- 
ica read  only  the  one  small  line  in  tiny  print: 

Converts  for  April 37 

For  that  is  the  way  it  always  is  with  missionary  statis- 
tics :  they  look  so  flat  and  tame  boiled  down  in  little 
type, — unless,  of  course,  we  have  an  inkling  how;  such 
lines  get  ready  to  print ! 


XVI 

WORTH    HER    WEIGHT   IN   GOLD 

/^\  NE  year  passed. 
^^      Two  years  passed. 

And  in  the  third  year  Tim  and  Tom  received  this 
letter :  — 

Salaam,  you  dear  young  Wise- Acres! 

Bonnie  Aunt  is  so  busy  with  Billy  this  morning  that 
I  don't  believe  she  can  write  her  usual  letter  in  time  to 
catch  the  next  mail  steamer,  so  I  take  my  pen  in  hand 
to  do  her  duty  for  her.  I  wish  you  could  fetch  your 
Seven  League  Boots  and  step  over  an  ocean  or  two  to 
sec  my  patients  in  neat  white  rows  lying  in  my  brand- 
new  hospital !  Richer-Than-Rubies  is  in  the  children's 
ward  telling  Bible  stories;  two  dozen  spellbound 
brownie  faces  lie  there  drinking  in  every  word.  It 
was  worth  waiting  five  years  for — this  hospital!  It 
has  big  verandas  with  stucco  pillars  (verandas  make 
it  cooler  indoors)  and  everything  else  it  ought  to  have, 
especially  a  laboratory  where  Manikam  helps  me  with 
labels  and  scales,  etc.  He's  going  to  be  a  doctor,  did 
I  tell  you  ?  To  see  him  filling  vials  and  shining  instru- 
ments you'd  think  he  was  a  full-fledged  M.D.  already ! 
On  Fridays  when  "Leezie"  and  I  play  Hide  and  Go 
Seek,  Manikam  comes  along  to  dole  out  the  medicine. 

Really  the  greatest  help  to  me,  for  I  pick  up  the  proper 

161 


162  India  Inklings 

bottle  and  say:  "Give  20  capsules  to  Old  Man  Crick 
in  His  Back." 

"Yes,  Sahib,"  says  Manikam,  like  a  soldier  at  atten- 
tion. The  time  I  used  to  spend  warning  patients  just 
how  to  apply  tonics  and  swallow  pills  is  now  free,  be- 
cause Manikam  does  my  warning  to  perfection :  "Hold 
out  your  tongue  this  way,  see  ?  Lay  the  pill  thus : 
Draw  in  your  tongue.  Close  your  lips.  Gulp !  Quick, 
if  it  tastes  queer ;  slow,  if  you  like  the  sweetness.  Then 
two  swallows  of  water.  Only  regarding  that  water,  it 
must  be  boiled,  then  cooled.  Water  that  is  not  boiled  is 
full  of  bad  disease  animals.  .  .  ."  We  call  him  The 
Little  Brown  Doctor.  He  is  doing  splendidly  in 
school,  and  in  two  more  years  may  even  be  ready  for 
college. 

I  am  disturbed  that  Bonnie  Aunt  has  not  sent  you 
the  lovely  composition  which  Machamma  wrote  about 
her  in  our  girls'  boarding  school,  forty  miles  away. 
Perhaps  she  felt  it  was  too  complimentary  to  share, 
but  I  want  you  to  see  it — both  to  show  you  how 
cleverly  Machamma  is  learning  English  at  that  school 
and  also  to  show  the  dear  influence  which  Bonnie 
Aunt  has  had  on  her.  Our  friend  Miss  Harrow  mailed 
it  to  us. 

"THE  WOMAN  I  ADMIRE  THE  MOST" 

"Amma  is  low  as  a  American,  but  for  India  she  is 
right  high.  Littler  than  the  doctor  sahib  but  higher 
up  than  Billy.  The  most  beautifulest  thing  I  have 
ever  saw  is  her  face.  It  is  so  pleasant.  It  makes 
everything  so  pleasant.    When  I  go  away  from  school, 


Angel  Weighs  Her  as  She  Sleeps     163 


Wouldn't  it  be  a  curious  sensation — to  have  an  angel  come 
and  weigh  us  while  we  sleep?  It  makes  us  wonder  if  we  would 
be  "weighed  and  found  wanting"  like  dear  Tim  or  be  "worth 
our  weight  in  gold"  like  Machamma  1 


Worth  Her  Weight  in  Gold       165 

Amma  smiles  me  away.  When  I  come  back  next 
morning,  Amma  smiles  me  back.  When  I  are  sick, 
Amma  smiles  me  welL  When  I  are  bad,  Amma  smiles 
me  good.  If  sad  lady  met  Amma  they  are  become 
joy.  Her  head  do  got  on  top  all  gold  hair  with  sun- 
shine in  it.  And  the  sweetest  little  ears.  Her  nose 
is  not  high.     One  tooth  hath  gold  in  a  lovely  crack. 

""Amma  came  to  our  village  across  the  sea  for 
teach  us.  She  is  always  busy  of  things  that  couldn't 
wait  another  minute.  You  cannot  make  stop  Amma. 
Her  hand  is  clever.  It  can  cook  more  nice  than  the 
cook.  It  can  plant  flowers  more  prettier  than  the  mali. 
It  can  sew  dainty  than  the  dirzy.  It  can  squeeze  with 
love.  It  can  do  anything.  Even  it  can  ride  'Leezie.' 
But  it  cannot  slap  and  spank.    That  is  Amma. 

''God  loves  Amma  with  a  special.  She  is  dearly 
in  His  sight.    I  pray  Jesus  make  me  3  inches  of  Amma. 

"Amen." 

Well,  Tim  and  Tom,  we  two  grown-ups  sat  down 
and  cried  like  little  children  over  this  quaint  composi- 
tion, while  Bonnie  Aunt  kept  saying:  "I  am  not  like 
that !  It  is  just  her  love — oh,  she  is  worth  her  weight 
in  gold,  that  Machamma.  Harry,  we  must  see  she 
gets  a  college  education.  She  would  make  a  marvelous 
teacher." 

"Yes,  Bonnie,  dear,"  I  answered,  "but  college  costs; 
and  Devidas  is  poor." 

"Devidas  is  saving  up  his  annas  for  this  very  thing; 
and  I  am  saving  mine!  Pitchamma  skimps  the  rice  pot 
a  little  every  meal,  and  even  granny  wants  to  learn 


166  India  Inklings 

crocheting,  so  that  she  can  sell  her  lace  for  Ma- 
chamma's  education.  The  ladies  in  our  church  at 
home  are  also  saving,  and  I  really  think  that  Tim  and 
Tom  might  like  to  help,  don't  you?" 

)So  I'm  writing  to  ask:    Would  you? 

/You've  always  done  a  lot  for  Machamma,  you 
know.  First  the  postcard;  then  the  doll;  those  scrap- 
books  that  you  pasted  on  long  rainy  afternoons;  those 
boxes  of  toys  and  trinkets  which  you  always  sent 
for  Christmas  with  everything  from  safety-pins  to 
spinning-tops !  Machamma  would  always  get  her  share 
and  treasure  it!  "Just,  think!  Amma's  family  in 
America  have  love  for  me  that  reaches  way  across 
the  sea,"  she  always  says,  hugging  her  gift  in  her 
arms.  So  we  can  safely  say  you've  helped  us  bring 
her  up  this  far — don't  you  want  to  go  on  with  it? 
I  thought  I'd  drop  the  inkling — turn  it  into  a  clinkling 
if  you  can,  and  send  it  to  our  mission  Board  Rooms. 

Love  from  your  faraway 

Pied  Piper. 

P.  S. — Bonnie  Aunt  has  just  come  in  with  news  and 
insists  on  adding  a  postscript  in  the  corner  of  this 
letter. 

P.  S.  2. — A  corner,  indeed!  Why,  dear  Twinnies, 
I  have  such  a  piece  of  news  that  it  deserves  a  whole 
sheet  by  itself,  for  this  afternoon  Devidas  paid  me  a 
visit.  Of  course  I  asked  for  Machamma,  and  he  said: 
"Machamma  is  no  more.    I  came  to  tell  you." 

"Dead?"  I  gasped,  my  heart  like  a  stone  inside  me. 

"Oh,  no,  Amma,"  he  said  gently,  "I  do  not  think 
that  Father  God  needs  Machamma  in  heaven  just  yet. 


Worth  Her  Weight  in  Gold       167 

I  think  that  He  has  polished  up  her  face  with  joy  to 
live  in  India.  But  Machamma — Blot — what  kind  of 
a  name  is  that  for  a  girl  who  becomes  dearer  than 
a  son  to  her  father?  Bah!  I  will  have  no  more  of 
Machamma.  It  is  gone  forever,  that  old  name;  so  I 
want  you  to  write  her  a  letter  at  her  school  and  tell 
her  her  father  renames  her  Santhoshamma — Joy!  Tell 
her  it  came  to  my  heart  that  I  should  do  this  gladness 
for  the  Saviour  while  I  sat  in  church  singing: 


€(  « 


Just  as  I  am  and  waiting  not 

To  rid  my  soul  of  one  dark  blot. 

To  Thee,  whose  love  can  cleanse  each  spot, 

O  Lamb  of  God,  I  come!    I  come!' 

I  like  calling  her  'Joy,'  don't  you?" 

"I  love  it,"  I  said.  "I  love  it  because  it  is  true, 
and  I  will  send  it  to  her  at  once." 

So,  dear  Twinnies,  we  will  never  write  again  of 
Machamma;  but  I  think  you  will  be  hearing  many 
times  of  Santhoshamma.  She  is  worth  her  weight 
in  gold,  dear  girl.  Did  the  Pied  Piper  suggest  your 
helping  us  save  up  a  fund  to  send  her  by  and  by  to 
the  Woman's  Christian  College  in  Madras?  This 
P.  S.  is  so  long  it  must  mean  Please  Stop !     Lovingly, 

Bonnie  Aunt. 

The  night  this  letter  came  Tim  went  to  bed  really 
upset  about  it. 

"I  haven't  got  one  cent  to  spare,"  she  groaned  as 
she  snuggled  her  head  in  the  pillow.  "I  have  such 
a  teeny  allowance — of  course   I'd   just  love   to  help 


168  India  Inklings 

save  up  for  Machamma,  but  I  don't  see  where 
the  money's  coming  from  .  .  .  worth  .  ..  .  her  ,  .  . 
weight  .  .  .  in  .  .  .  gold  .  .  ." 

No  sooner  had  she  thought  this  than  a  curious  thing 
happened,  for  two  angels  came  tiptoeing  into  the 
room,  and  the  first  angel  said:  "Is  she  sleeping?" 

"Yes,"  breathed  the  other  one  softly,  leaning  over 
the  bed. 

So  Tim  lay  stiller  than  still,  and  looked  as  sound 
asleep  as  a  wide-awake  person  can,  because  she  wanted 
to  hear  what  in  the  world  was  the  matter. 

Imagine  her  surprise,  therefore,  when  the  first  angel 
opened  an  account  book,  and  said,  sighing:  "Then  I 
suppose  we  had  better  begin  weighing  her." 

"Dear  me !  Dear  me !"  throbbed  Tim,  expecting  any 
second  to  be  lifted  bodily  from  bed  and  fastened  on 
the  little  scales.  (Those  scales!  Surely  they  were  the 
very  ones  Manikam  had  used  to  weigh  the  idol's 
food.  .  .  .) 

"We'll  begin  with  the  candy  boxes,"  said  the  angel 
with  the  scales  in  a  most  businesslike  way,  and  set  a 
box  in  the  scales  at  once.  ("It's  empty/'  smiled  Tim.) 

"How  much  does  it  weigh?"  asked  the  angel-ac- 
countant. 

"Thirty  cents,"  said  the  other;  "half-pound  box, 
you  see.  Then  she's  bought  chocolate  almond  bars: 
ten  cents  on  Monday.  Ten  cents  on  Thursday.  Ten 
cents  on  Saturday.    Got  it  listed?" 

"Yes — that's  sixty  cents'  weight  of  candy.  Now 
weigh  the  ice-cream  sodas." 

"April  2  she  'treated'  three  friends — thirty  cents. 


Worth  Her  Weight  in  Gold       169 

April  5,  chocolate  sundaes,  self — fifteen  cents.  April 
7,  'treated'  Elsie  and  self — twenty  cents.'* 

"Wait  a  minute,"  gasped  the  accountant;  "you're 
going  too  fast.    Does  the  girl  live  on  sodas?" 

"This  was  Easter  vacation  week,  you  see,"  explained 
the  angel.     "I  suppose  she  had  nothing  else  to  do." 

"Oh,  Easter?  Well,  wouldn't  you  think  the  mere 
fact  that  it  was  Easter  would  make  her  place  a  little 
more  weight  on  the  Savioiitr's  side  of  the  account  book 
than  on  the  self  side?" 

"They're  pretty  thoughtless  at  her  age — " 

"Certainly  pretty,"  whispered  the  angel^  taking  a 
closer  look  at  dear  Tim. 

"But  not  a  bit  prettier  than  that  little  Indian  Blot- 
Who-Turned-to-Joy !"  the  other  angel  added  quickly. 

"Machamma?  Why,  she's  the  loveliest  of  all  earth's 
daughters  in  my  eyes.  Lovely  inside  her  head  as  well 
as  just  on  the  outside,  for  when  you  weigh  up 
Machamma  you  don't  have  to  make  any  of  these  sad 
excuses!  She  may  be  pretty  young,  but  she's  burning 
with  one  thought — to  help  every  one  in  India." 

"I  suppose  that's  because  she  has  come  up  out  of 
heathen  darkness  into  a  marvelous  Light;  whereas  this 
dear  little  Tim  Laurence  is  so  used  to  the  Light  that 
she  doesn't  realize  it  is  Light.  She  does  not  see  that 
it's  worth  passing  on  to  any  one  else  .  .  .  can't  skimp 
herself  to  do  it,  evidently!" 

"Evidently  not!  Yet  I  think  she'd  really  like  to, 
only  she  doesn't  plan  ahead.  Easter  sodas  would  have 
helped!  And  now  how  about  car  fares?  If  she  only 
started  earlier  to  school  she  could  just  as  well  walk 


170  India  Inklings 

and  save  much  of  her  weight  in  gold,  of  course — " 
On  and  on  they  went,  while  Tim  shrank  smaller 
and  smaller  in  bed.  It  was  rather  horrible.  "To-mor- 
row I  may  not  even  be  visible,"  she  worried.  "I  must 
be  one  of  those  little  small  souls.  Oh,  I  wish  they'd 
stop  weighing  me.  I'm  so  ashamed  ...  if  they'd 
come  back  to-morrow  night  they'd  find  I  have  learned 
better  ...  if  they  keep  on  now  there  won't  be  any- 
thing left  of  me  ...  all  squandered  on  things.  .  .  . 
I  didn't  dream  I  was  a  girl-with-so-much-money.  .  .  ." 
Tom  woke  her  up  with  a  pillow.  He  stood  in 
the  doorway  grinning.  "I  should  say  that  was  a 
dream,  Tim ;  you,  a  girl-with-so-much-money  ?  Wake 
up,  it's  morning  and  I  know  forty  'leven  ways  to  earn 
some  dollars.    Just  wait  till  you  hear !" 

And  even  if  there  is  no  time  to  drop  an  inkling  of 
the  ways  they  earned  those  dollars  (yearning  over 
them,  and  burning  over  them,  and  learning  over  them !) 
at  least  you  already  know  enough  of  India  Inklings 
to  guess  what  joyful  things  each  clinkling  will  accom- 
plish across  the  deep  blue  sea — for  Santhoshamma. 


THE   END 


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